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.

Fun with a zoom lens

Posted on June 6, 2010 by Michael Willems

Go on, have some fun:

Put a zoom lens on your camera, preferably a wide angle one.
St your camera’s mode to shutter priority (S or Tv).
Select a shutter speed of 1/15th second.
Select high ISO (1600) or auto ISO.
Zoom in on your subject in the centre.
Now briskly zoom out,and while doing that, click.

You get this:

A Blackberry at the centre of life

I took that shot on a Creative Urban Photography “Get out and shoot” course that I just did in Oakville.This was to show the students slow shutter speeds.

What if…

Posted on June 6, 2010 by Michael Willems

…your picture is not sharp enough, or too grainy, or slightly blurred, or too contrasty?

Then consider making it into a black and white image. Black and white is less critical.

A black and white picture of Michael Willems

Many images can be made better this way: B/W images show the image, not the quality of the image.

Where's the light?

Posted on June 3, 2010 by Michael Willems

In the picture I posted the other day of the female runner, did you notice the light? No, really, did you notice the direction of the light?

Here, let me post another one from the same shoot. Straight out of the camera (i.e. this is not the result of photoshopping):

Female runner running down the hill

You can see the sun is behind her: look at her shadow.

Normally that would lead to her front being dark. Bad light!

But instead, she is well lit and even has a bright side light on her face. That shapes her face and makes the picture much more interesting than it would otherwise have been.

You may recall, two flashes were used – two simple speedlites (Canon 430EX speedlites, fired by Pocketwizards). One bare, and one, the fill light, with a Honl Photo Traveller 8 softbox on it.

Light from “unnatural” directions like this leads to a look that is not natural, but rather, hyper real. A sort of otherworldly look. And as you may have noticed in many of my photos, I believe that that is a good thing to strive for in artistic photos.

Exposing the background correctly is also important – it is darker than your camera would have made it if it has had the final say.

Colour is important here too – I am partial to a combination of red, blue and green; and the pink is close enough to red to make it interesting.

Can you see that the background is a bit blurry? That is becasue I was pannign – following th emodel with the camera as I shot.

(Want to learn more? Well, you can: these are just some of the techniques we teach in our workshops: stay tuned or contact me for more information)

A reminder of how to flash

Posted on June 1, 2010 by Michael Willems

..that is, of how to use flash outside when it is bright. I thought I would explain yesterday’s shots further in this context by simply showing a logical sequence.

One – a snapshot. Here is a shot of my hand on a bright day (i.e. today, a few hours ago at the Royal Botanical Gardens), when the hand itself is not in the sun. Say I used Program mode and just shot. We all know (and hate) this kind of shot:

A hand, not well lit

Two: snapshot with flash. Okay… so now let’s turn on the flash. Still just program mode, but now I pop up the flash:

A hand, lit by flash light

Better, and we could stop there – perfectly OK.

But I prefer to go the extra step.

Three: snapshot with flash and negative exposure compensation. Remember Willems’s Dictum: “Bright pixels are sharp pixels”. I want my hand to be brighter, not the same or darker. And I want colour in the background. So now I use Exposure Compensation (the “+/-” control on my camera) and turn it down, say to minus 1 or even minus 2 for extra drama. Here’s -2:

A hand, well lit by flash, with -2 stops Exp. Comp.

Wow, now we have drama. Maybe too much drama for some of you, in which case do not use -2 stops; try -1 instead.

Simple, innit?

It's too bright outside. Quick! Hand me a flash!

Posted on May 30, 2010 by Michael Willems

We do not use flash “because it is too dark” – at least not just. We very often use flash because it is too bright outside.

By using a bright flash, we can:

Decrease the exposure of the background, thus making it less bright
Then use the flash to increase the exposure of the foreground, to avoid darkening it as a result of step 1 (becasue this would otherwise happen).

Step 1 also

Increases the colour saturation.
Allows you to make your subject stand out against the background.

Step 2 also allows you:

To accent parts of your shot,
To “model” shapes,
To throw light where you want it.

At yesterday’s all day Country Creative Lighting Workshop in Mono, Joseph Marranca and I used technique to do exactly that. So you turn a simple snap into this, instead:

Female runner on a country road

For this, we used technique. Technique that included (apart from a talented model):

The use of two speedlites, set to manual, fired by Pocketwizards
A Honl Photo Traveller 8 portable softbox on one
Manual camera exposure settings

Two simple off-camera speedlites can create a shot like that? Yes they can. 430 EX speedlites can overpower the sun? Yes they can. Try it!

Flash consistency – a note

Posted on May 29, 2010 by Michael Willems

So you are surprised that your flash pictures always turn out differently and unpredictably, especially when using automatic (“TTL”) flash?

Then this may help:

A. First, worry about the background, ambient light:

First, decide “should the background light do any work?”. If you are using an automatic or semi-automatic mode, like P, Av/A or Tv/S, the camera will try to light the background well. so it will not just be the flash doing the lighting.
Realise that there are limits to the previous: on Canon always in P mode, and on Nikon in P and A when “Slow Flash” is disabled, the camera will limit shutter speed to avoid blur.
So if you want total predictability of the background, use manual, and set your meter to the desired ambient lighting level (I recommend you start at -2 stops, i.e. the light meter points to “-2”). See a recipe below.

In a typical room, a starting point might be 1/30th second, f/2.8, 400 ISO, and the flash pointed behind you. Auto ISO is not recommended!

B. Then, concern yourself with the flash:

The foreground is mainly lit by flash, not by your Av/Tv/ISO settings.
Canon cameras in particular try to avoid overexposing part of the picture, so even a small reflective object in the flash picture can result in a dark, mainly underexposed photo.
The flash exposure metering is, on most cameras, biased toward your focus points. So the camera looks mainly where you focus.
If you take a picture of something bright (a bride in the snow) the camera will underexpose it to give you a grey bride. If you take a picture of a dark object (a groom in a coalmine) the camera will overexpose it to give you a grey groom.
To fix this, you can turn the flash up and down using flash exposure compensation (“Flash Exp Comp”).
Play with the light: aim your flash at walls or ceilings if you can. and create a “virtual umbrella”.

Try it and see if you get more consistent!

Here’s a typical recent flash picture, of a nice photographer I met recently:

A flash photo - yes really.

Doesn’t look like your usual “deer in the headlights” snap? That’s because I was following my own suggestions above. Note I also used a Honl Photo 1/2 CTO gel, to make the flash light look a bit more like the background Tungsten light. I like warm backgrounds, but I often make them a tiny bit less warm this way.

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