Toronto, 27 July 2010:
Yonge-Dundas Square, by Michael Willems
If a rainbow, which only happens to an observer, happens unobserved, is it still a rainbow?
Lonely Rainbow
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Category Archives: Picture of the day
Chelsea, or what one image can do
When I was 16, I first saw Patti Smith’s album “Horses”.
The cover photo of that album changed me: I know instantly I wanted to be a photographer. Here is that one photo, taken by Robert Mapplethorpe of his then girlfriend Patti Smith:
Everything comes together. The light, the high-key shot, the left-right angle, the way we slightly look up at her, her hands, the expression, the coat over her shoulder, the contrast, the greys.
I think I have been in love with Patti ever since. And with photography.
A few years ago I stayed at The Hotel Chelsea in New York, where all this happened. I felt in the presence of greatness, of history… everything happened here. Leonard Cohen. Bob Dylan. Andy Warhol. Dylan Thomas. Arthur C. Clarke. The list is long.
Hotel Chelsea (Michael Willems)
And the hotel has, um, character:
Hotel Chelsea, Reception Desk (Michael Willems)
And art. And a sense of history, and time. I mean… I actually stayed where this was made, the picture that set off my interest in photography: how cool is that?
Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe together at the time, by an anonymous photog:
And Patti Smith, by Robert Mapplethorpe, at The Chelsea:
Another beautiful photo.
And finally, one more from me: the view from the hotel – what Patti would have seen if she looked straight ahead:
View from The Chelsea Hotel (Photo Michael Willems)
I just ordered “Just Kids”, Patti Smith’s autobiography of that time, on Amazon.
Inspired, I continue my day.
GF1 self portrait
A self portrait I took a few minutes ago:
Michael Willems, photo by Michael Willems
I shot this with the Panasonic GF1:
- Camera on manual, f/4.0, 1/60th second, 200 ISO
- Using multiple-point autofocus
- Pocketwizard on the camera
- Pocketwizard on a 430EX flash, connected with Flashzebra cable
- Flash set to manual, 1/32nd power
- Honl Photo Traveller 8 softbox on the (handheld) flash
To lower the noise (“increase the signal to noise ratio”, for engineers) I exposed to the right (i.e. I exposed high, but without actually overexposing anything) and then pulled back a stop in Lightroom.
The 20mm lens (yes you can use 40mm, for that is what it is, for portraits) gives me that wonderful sharpness. Click and view full size to see how sharp it is.
The Honl softbox gives it that nice soft look and the unique round catchlights.
And I have said it before: for creative photography, lighting a subject is as much about what you do not light than about what you do light.
Postscript: And here’s one more: son Jason just now (similarly lit, also shot with the GF1)
Jason, shot with GF1/430EX
Street stories
I have said before that pictures are more interesting when they keep you guessing.
Today I had five minutes to do a few street shots, before an appointment with a friend and client on Toronto’s Victoria Street. So I used those five minutes to take a few snaps at Yonge and Dundas Square in Toronto:
Yonge-Dundas Square, 27 July 2010
Yonge-Dundas Square, 27 July 2010
Yonge-Dundas Square, 27 July 2010
Yonge-Dundas Square, 27 July 2010
"Separate Lives" - Yonge-Dundas Square, 27 July 2010
Oh, I do love street photography, and I do love the new GF-1 that allows me to snap away unobtrusively.
A few more GF1 snaps
A few more snaps, taken just now, with the Panasonic GF1. Around the house using available light.
This shows me how international my life has been. A random selection of items in my house:
From the Netherlands, and from a time when flying was fun. On KLM, business class and first class passengers used to receive items of Delft Blue chinaware (the houses filled with liquor, which alas has all evaporated in these past 25-plus years):
Delft Blue - GL1 with 20mm f/1.7 lens
Indonesia: this figurine takes on all the shame and bad feelings in the household, thus freeing the people who live in the home from them:
Shame! Indonesian figurine - GL1 and 20mm f/1.7 lens
Middle East: a chess set bought in Jerusalem:
Chess pieces - GL1 and 20mm f/1.7 lens
England: Wedgwood from Harrods:
Wedgwood - GL1 and 20mm f/1.7 lens
Libya: a primary drill bit I found in the desert:
Primary Drill Bit, Libya - Panasonic GF-1, 20mm f/1.7 lens
China: a souvenir
Soldier Souvenir, China - Panasonic GF1
Eastern Europe, a crystal glass:
Crystal glass, Panasonic GF1 with 20mm f/1.7 lens
Life is one great adventure.
Oakville Sunset
Friday evening, this was the sunset as I was almost home:
Oakville Sunset, photo by Michael Willems
That colour is not photoshopped: it was real.
For sunset pictures, remember this:
- Set your white balance to “daylight” (on the camera or, if shooting RAW, in Lightroom later).
- Expose right (if using evaluative metering, then use -1 stop Exposure Compensation). This saturates the colours.
I prefer to set the WB on the camera even when shooting RAW. That way, I can see on the LCD roughly what I may be getting.
Choose
Light. And hence, photographic lighting. It can make a picture completely different from any other picture. Photos are about light, composition, and moment. Light is a differentiator as large as the other two.
And it is a matter of taste. De gustibus non est disputandum.
So, to see what others think, let me ask. Which of the two pictures below (taken on Sunday during the all-day workshop) do you prefer?
I was going to go into the differences, but I should not do that. Just a simple question: which one do you like better? View both large to see the detail.
Please let me know, in email or by commenting below.
Number one:
Girl in rain. Evanna Mills; photo by Michael Willems
And number two:
Girl in rain. Evanna Mills; photo by Michael Willems
I am curious. I suppose I have a preference, but I will not tell you which one it is.
One more quick recipe
Quick recipe for you.
Remember this shot, done in the workshop I taught three days ago in Las Vegas with David Honl?
Yasmin Tajik in Las Vegas
Shot how, you ask? I mean – at what settings and such?
- Camera: 1D Mark IV with 35mm f/1.4L prime lens.
- 100 ISO.
- Camera on manual, 1/320th second at f/16 (slightly exceeding the 1/300th sec synch speed).
- Flash is an SB900, also on manual (“M” rather than “TTL”); set to full power (“1/1”).
- Flash is on a boom, and is fitted with a Honl Photo Traveller 8 softbox (notice the nice round catchlights), and is held a couple of feet from Yasmin’s face.
And you know that at full power, with a softbox, an SB900 will give you those settings.
A 430EX will need to be about twice as close to her face.
Try your own flash at those settings: how close do you need to hold it to ensure proper exposure, using the modifier of your choice. Once you know that, it will always be the same. Simple, really.
Note: the SB900 flash will overheat at these settings, especially in Las Vegas. A dozen shots in you will suddenly get no more flashes. The Nikon flash cannot be used at full power, while the Canon flashes can. With a Nikon SB800/900 flash, I would simply go to half power and live with that. If I needed more light, I would add another flash.
Want to know more? Want to learn all this and go home with a few cool portfolio shots? There is still space on the all-day Advanced Flash workshop Sunday in Mono, Ontario. Book now to get a spot.
Oh, one more thing. Am I cheating? Is this just sunlight lighting up Yasmin?
I think not. Here is the same shot without firing the flash (always a good thing to do to test your settings!):
No flash firedI rest my case.
Vegas shots
A few more pictures from Las Vegas. For two days, David Honl and I taught, and showed, and guided the students through the making of these types of flash images:
Yasmin Tajik, photographed by Michael Willems
Yasmin Tajik, photographed by Michael Willems
Las Vegas Student, photographed by Michael Willems
Las Vegas Student, photographed by Michael Willems
Las Vegas Student, photographed by Michael Willems
Las Vegas Student, photographed by Michael Willems
Snoots, grids and gels were used for these photos. All were made with simple speedlites.
Sample
OK, one more sample from the fun series of Flash seminars I did with David Honl at Studio Pet’ographique in Las Vegas.
We filled up the room both days and had a lot of fun. I love sharing what I know, and doing practical shots makes it even better. More later but now I need tocatch a plane to Philadelphia and on to Toronto tomorrow morning.
Gel, grid, and softbox were used fior this picture of a student volunteer:
Looking at the light.
Offline soon!