Piecing it together

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Michael Willems

Sunday, I shot a Bat Mitzvah party. Great fun, and wonderful people: this is why I love photography. Happy people celebrating a life event, and I get to shoot it: a privilege, and I get to do it for a living. What’s not to like?

I shot both formal portraits (using a backdrop and two strobes with umbrellas plus two speedlites for hair light and background light) and photojournalistic party shots.

For the latter, I have a few tips.

Use a wide or somewhat wide lens. fast if possible. (I used a 16-35 f/2.8 zoom on a 1D MkIV, so that means I get a 22-46mm range).
“If it smiles, shoot it”!
Compose well. Use off-centre composition. Tilt if necessary or whenever you like (though not, please, in every picture). Do the “close-far” thing (search for it here if you do not know what this means).
Camera on manual indoors and A/Av outdoors, and bounce your flash.
Shoot detail, too.
Often what you do not see tells the story.

The last points are worth belabouring. Like in a good Haiku, not telling the whole story is what makes it interesting. Implying, rather than saying.

Here, for instance, we do not see the girl, and her dad and family are blurred too:

Dad holds a speech for his Bat Mitzvah daughter.

But you see the smiles, and you can imagine what is going on. The picture tells a story.

And below, who wrote this? Little sister? The picture asks as many questions as it answers:

Little sister wrote on Bat Mitzvah girl's blackboard

And in the next image, one of my favourite party shots, the drink says fun: the blurred face emphasizes the fun and again, tells a story without telling too much:

Cheers! Girl raises juice glass

Another detail shot to not miss: the food.

Fruit

Here, during speeches, dad looks at his amused Bat Mitzvah daughter. We do not see who is speaking, even that anyone is speaking, but we can piece it together. Piecing it together is what makes a picture interesting to a viewer.

Speech at Bat Mitzvah

Of course even in the photojournalistic phase you do some set up shots, like the very last shot I took at the event: mum and daughter.

Bat Mitzvah and mom

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(Incidentally, if you want to learn theory and practice of creative use of light, there are still spots available on the advanced lighting course Joseph Marranca and I are putting on on June 26. Click here for the link. )

Snapshot rules

Posted on June 13, 2010 by Michael Willems

Even when you take a simple snapshot, as a photographer you should think about how to do it. Almost subconsciously, I apply the same rules and the same thinking to a snapshot that I do to a photo I am paid for.

So I thought it might be worthwhile to discuss some of that thinking. In that context, here is a snapshot I took the other day of a friend:

Michael's friend Ninon, shot with a wide angle lens

In the second or two before I take that snap, what is some of my thinking, and what are some of the decisions I make?

Subject: What is this a photo of? (it is a happy snap, so “camera-aware” and a smile are just great). Check.
Light: Where is the light coming from? In this case it is from her front, indirect reflected light, i.e. nice flattering light. Check.
Lens choice: I want to use a wide angle lens here because this is a situational portrait, a city woman in her city. Wide angle lenses put a subject in context. I want a wide angle lens also because it creates those nice diagonals that converge on the subject, can you see them? Finally, I also want wide angle to show depth in the photo (a technique knows as “close-far”).
Depth of field: I want to draw attention to my subject by blurring the background, so I use Aperture mode (A/Av) with an aperture of f/2.8. Wide angle lenses are sharp all over, but by using a fast one (f/2.8) and by getting close I can still blur the background dramatically.
Composition: I am using the rule of thirds. “Uncle Fred” puts the subject in all his images smack bang in the middle: I use off-centre composition. In this case the centre of attention (her face) is one third from the right, one third from the top. And she is looking into the picture, not out of it.
Moment: you need to capture the right moment. I shot four times and by photo number four, her smile was best. Shoot a lot, even in a portrait. so you capture just the right moment. I also thought the right moment included the “suits” in the background. After all, King and Wellington, downtown Toronto, means suits out for (if not out to) lunch. So I was delighted to see them approach and took the four shots just as they passed behind her.

That is, in a nutshell, what I thought in the seconds leading up to this picture.

That is my thinking. Yours may have been different, and that is of course perfectly OK. There is not one good picture: there are 100 billion. The essence here is not what my conclusions were, but the fact that I was thinking at all, instead of just blindly snapping.

Light, moment and composition/subject, that is what makes up a picture. So think of those every time you take one, and your pictures will get better.

Five-and-a-half feet.

Posted on June 12, 2010 by Michael Willems

Yes, five and a half feet. Above the ground. That is the distance from which Uncle Fred takes every single picture.

Like this:

A street in Oakville shot from 5.5 feet above ground level by Michael Willems

A street shot from 5.5 feet above ground level

Now instead, why not get close to the ground? Like this. And look at the difference that makes:

A street in Oakville shot from 12" above ground level by Michael Willems

A street, shot from 12" above ground level

Much more intimate and dramatic.

…or perhaps even tilt it, using a mis-named “Dutch Angle”?

A street in Oakville shot from 6" above ground level by Michael Willems

A street shot from 6" above ground level

Now it’s like we are crawling on the ground.

Try to get interesting angles. Avoid the ubiquitous Uncle Fred straight-and-level 5.5′ AGL position when you can do better.

No depth in my pictures?

Posted on June 8, 2010 by Michael Willems

I just returned from a very enjoyable Advanced Flash workshop.

But now a different subject. Depth.

A simple tip: if you want three-dimensionality in your photos, i.e. depth, perspective, then:

Use a wide-angle lens;
Include a close-by foreground object;
Get close to that object.

..and your pictures will have depth.

This example, shot Sunday in Oakville during a “Creative Urban Photography” workshop I designed for Henry’s School of Imaging, has no foreground subject:

Oakville shot by Michael Willems

Boring. Flat. Uninteresting.

And this one does have a close-by foreground subject:

Oakville shot by Michael Willems, with a foreground subject

Oakville with a foreground subject

Clear – no? Which picture do you prefer?

The prosecution rests its case.

Ten Portrait Tips

Posted on May 20, 2010 by Michael Willems

Here’s ten important portrait tips for you today:

Use the right lens. A lens in the 35-100mm range is best (on a crop camera). A 50mm f/1.8 lens can be had very affordably, and this length (equivalent to 80mm) is great for headshots.
Think about your lighting. Natural light is best (from a north facing window). Avoid direct flash: when using flash, bounce it off a white or near-white wall or ceiling or use other modifiers or off-camera flash. Use a hair light when needed to separate a person from the background. Consider adding a splash of colour. Match the light to the mood, and realise that good light is all about the shadows.
Closest eye sharp. Ensure that the eyes are sharp. Nothing else needs to be sharp, but the closest eye in particular has to be in focus.
Think about the environment. If this is an environmental portrait, use a wider angle lens and show the subject interacting with, or surrounded by, that background. But if the background is not meaningful, blur it.
Get the Moment! Shoot a lot, so you will catch the right moment, not the cheesy expressions.
Catchlight: ensure the eyes show a little catch-light. If not, they look lifeless.
Off-centre composition: do not put your subject, or your subject’s eyes, in the centre of your photo: Uncle Fred does that. Instead, use off-centre composition (“the rule of thirds”).
Directing: never tell your subjects you are posing them: say “positioning” instead.
Positioning: Angle your subjects unless they are very thin. In multiple-person groups, make little groups, use a combination of “sit”, “stand” and “lean”, and use joiners to join the groups. having a subject lean into the camera is often flattering.
Props – consider using props that are meaningful (an author holding a book, for instance).

An environmental portrait sample:

Audio Expert Victoria Fenner in the studio

And another one: a headshot, but still environmental:

Christy Smith of Studio Moirae

And here’s a traditional headshot:

Army Reserves Private

There are of course legion more tips and tricks, but the above will get you going. There will be more tips coming!

If you want to learn more, and “hands on”, then come for a short, effective, course – send me an email to hear when and where. Like the all-day Advanced Lighting course on May 30 in Mono, Ont: there are still spaces.

Three-Dee in flatland

Posted on April 23, 2010 by Michael Willems

Photographs are like flatland. There are just two dimensions. No depth.

That is why the pictures you take of the Grand Canyon or Cologne Cathedral look so boring when you see them at home. When you are on location, your brain gets clues from your stereoscopic vision, and from you moving, and even from sound. In a picture, all of those are missing.

The solution: use relative size. When a close object is really close, it looks large, and the background looks smaller. It is this that tells your brain that there is depth in the picture.

Like here, on the Golan Heights:

Every time something jumps out of the picture, it was taken like this:

With a wide angle lens (say, 10-20mm on a crop camera; 16-35mm on a full-frame camera),
With the photographer very close to the close object (in this case the barrel).

Another example:

As you see, this also distorts angles, which can give a pleasing dramatic effect.

And one more:

So if you want depth, zoom out and get close.

Studio Settings

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Michael Willems

A few words to get you started on studio portrait setups.

When you are shooting in a “studio” (i.e. controlled) setting, your camera settings might be, as I recently pointed:

Camera on Manual
100 ISO
Auto ISO disabled
1/125th sec
f/8
“Flash” white balance

Why as small as f/8?

Because lower aperture numbers than 5.6 can give you too selective a depth of field; and with most lenses, higher numbers than f/8 create diffraction, meaning slight blurriness. If you like sharp, stick to f/8 or perhaps f/5.6.

You also use f/8 or similar because studio lights are powerful. (Someone the other day searched for “how to shoot wide open with studio light” – often, the lights are so bright even on their lowest settings that the only way to do that is to use a neutral density filter on your lens).

And lenses?

For portraits, I use 50-200mm. Smaller focal length (like 50-70 on a full frame camera) makes a woman’s body smaller (if I shoot at head height). Larger makes the nose smaller, but can make the body slightly bigger. I.e. larger gives you no distortion, but sometimes ever-so-slight distortion is exactly what you want. My favourites are:

24-70 2.8L
70-200 2.8L IS
50mm f/1.4 (for use on the 7D, or for body shots on the 1D Mark IV or 1Ds Mark III)
35mm f/1.4 (for environmental portraits)
100 mm f/2.8 macro (yes, a macro lens is a great portrait lens)

But you can keep it simple! A Canon Digital Rebel or Nikon D90 with a 50mm f/1.8 lens, for instance, will allow you to take great razor-sharp studio portraits. It’s all about the light!

Arizona

Posted on March 23, 2010 by Michael Willems

As you read this, I am in Arizona.

Here is a snap from my trip last December to Sedona:

What you can see in a simple snap like this is that:

It is well exposed. Check your histogram if you are not sure.
It is sharp (even though it was hand held while I was, um, driving)
The sky is deep blue – perhaps aided by a polarizing filter?
I used a wide angle lens. This leads to dynamic and three-dimensional images, and it is easy to focus a wide angle lens and to keep the images sharp at lower shutter speeds.
The composition is off-centre: using the “rule of thirds”. Remember Uncle Fred, who puts every subject dead centre in every picture: leading to boring, wrong-looking composition more often than not.

A few simple guidelines can lead to better pictures. More of which soon, if I get a chance to take any!

Outstanding

Posted on March 22, 2010 by Michael Willems

One question you need to ask yourself is “how do I draw attention to my subject”.

One way to do that is to use colour, like in this image:

Red and green are opposing colours and add interest, but it is of course the yellow flower that draws our eye immediately. And notice how it is in the “rule of thirds” position?

Here’s another example. Can you see both the similarities and the differences?

So as a photographer, it helps if you can keep an eye open to colours.

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Category Archives: Composition