More technique:

Here’s me, shot by Christy Smith of Studio Moirae:

Yeah, I model too.

But wait. That cool blue urban look. Was it actually like that?

No. The actual scene was like this. Here’s Christy and David Honl taking a test shot:

So wait. How come it’s all blue?

That’s because Christy and Dave set their camera’s white balance to “Tungsten”. That will turn daylight blue.

But then I would be blue too!

Except they are lighting me with a flash with a CTO (“Colour Temperature Orange”, i.e. Tungsten-coloured) Honl gel and with a Honl Grid to make the light go mainly to my head and shoulders. The flash was aimed straight at me and set to manual, and it was fired with pocketwizards.

That’s the kind of cool technique Dave and I taught the participants who came to the workshops Monday and Tuesday in Phoenix, Arizona. If you have the chance, come to a future one: they’re fun and you will lean sooo much.

0 thoughts on “More technique:

  1. Michael,

    Thanks for the information and the recap of above on how the shot was taken.

    Question: I shoot in RAW+Jpeg 100% of the time on my camera. What if I didn’t adjust my white balance to tungsten and left it on auto lets say. When I do the post processing on the computer and i’m editing the raw file, can I choose tungsten as the white balance when processing the raw file and will it give the same effect? If so what would be the advantage of doing it manually (using the gels and tungsten setting on the camera) vs doing it during post processing?

    Also is there a good article out there that I could read that will help me understand the usage of gels? I bought 20 colored gels from Dave and I only know how to use the CTO gels, the others i’m clueless when, where and why to use them.

    Eric

  2. A-ha! No you cannot do that – because then my face would turn blue also! It’s the two separate colours that necessitate the gel!

    And yes, re gels: check here on the blog (search for it) and ask what is not clear – this is a favourite subject to blog about so make sure you tel me what’s not 100% clear and I will blog and explain until it is!

  3. Sorry I meant “during this shot”?

    That could be another blog entry idea: how to shoot good photos in busy places? (to not have strangers in your photos!)

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