Why reshooting isn't a bad thing.

My husband told me a story yesterday about a co-worker of his who's relative heard about this blog and has a lot of love for photography. Apparently he's now following my blog like a religion and trying to do some of the techniques I've written about. I'm completely flattered and shrinking under the mounting pressure. I can't spell for my life and my grammar is terrible. To all my unseen minions I hope none of you can read past an eight grade level and my slaughtering of the English language goes unnoticed. Seriously though, a big thanks to anyone taking the time to read my self-aggrandizing propaganda that some might confuse with a photography guide.

Now please forgive me as I post more photos of my son. He's a month and two days old now and I can't help but think he's getting cuter every day. He started smiling at me (but only when the camera is put away of course) and I can't wait to catch a big fat smile and post it all over the internet. The first shot shown was done at my studio the other night. This is as close to a smile as he would give. Just watch this child will be my "serious one" and I'll end up with thousands of images of his first year, all of which lack facial expression.

The next image is my re-shoot of the Christmas card photos. This is more of what I was originally thinking when I designed the shot in my head. Sometimes it takes several re-shoots before I get an image just right and honestly I think it's a good thing to revisit an idea until you've perfected it. For me making an image is often like a chemistry experiment; that is, you need to apply the scientific method. Let's compare the two:

1. First you must ask a question (or in the photographer's case, be given an assignment).
2. Do research (consider the techniques and equipment the shot might require).
3. Construct a hypothesis (location scout, draw diagrams and form a shot/pose list).
4. Test with an experiment (shoot like there is no tomorrow)!
5. Analysis and conclusion (Lightroom and Photoshop).
6. Decide if hypothesis is true or false. Go back to step 3 if false (re-shoot.)
7. Report results (blog about your image.)

I'm still not perfectly happy with this shot. I may shoot again until it's exactly what I see in my mind. I am thinking of using a wider angle and bring Alex a lot closer to the camera to make him larger in the frame so more of the Christmas tree is visible. I also want a more pleasant look on his face. Still haven't decided if I should put him back in the box. I know that the white wrapping paper, though a nice idea, didn't look as good as I had hoped.  Plus I need to do this shot before he's old enough to talk back.

If I decide to do this shot again I'll post results. Until then I have plans to discuss studio lighting for the next few days. There is a lot of tutorials about shootings on a white background floating around the world wide web. I'm going to add my own say on the matter as well as how to shoot on black backgrounds.

How to blur a background with the lens blur filter

Over the holiday weekend my studio went portable and I shot this image and many others for the Liechty family. In total they were 10 adults and 7 kids. Groups this big can fit in my studio, but often times with the number of young kids is close to exceeding the number of adults it's best to bring the studio to my clients. I would say 90% of all kids under the age of 5 photograph better in a familiar location (thus the reason I'm always pushing for parents to do location portraits). Whether it's a favorite park, your backyard or in this instance, Grandma's house, any location will do!
For this session we used some of my most portable studio backgrounds- white and black fabric. The white tends to be the most prone to wrinkling so prior to shooting I spent 2 hours (no joke) ironing it. I would have done the black too if I had time. So when I set up the black background it was of course a giant pile or wrinkles. There are two ways to get around this. 1. Shoot with a wide open aperture so the background naturally blurs in the camera or use photoshop to retouch out the wrinkles. Since the entire group was to be photographed on the black I had no choice but to shoot at maximum depth of field. For those images the exposure was 1/250 @F22. And you guessed it, every wrinkle on the background was visible. After a bunch of large group photos we did the parents/grandparents of this entire group and again even with less depth of field, still a messy background. Here is what the image above looked like before any editing.

I find the background very distracting. Below are the steps I took to isolate and blur the background.

• Make a duplicate layer and then use the lens blur filter (photoshop CS3 and higher) to blur the duplicate layer until the wrinkles pretty much disappear from the black background. For me these settings were as follows: 

Shape: Octagon
Radius: 61
Blade Curve: 41
Rotation: 63
All other settings at default

• Mask out the background from the people. I added a layer mask to the duplicate layer and using the paint brush I made my selection. You can also do this with the quick mask, or magic lasso, pen tool, etc. There are a hundred and one ones to mask in Photoshop. I chose the quick and dirty method since you don't have to be exact in this process just close. Basically I ran the paint brush along the shape of their bodies and then filled in the rest once the basic outline was done. It took about 3 minutes to do.
• You'll notice that the lens blur filter has a small outline where the background and people blur together. (see enlarged photo) You'll want to select the image on your duplicate layer (not the mask) and using the clone tool and healing brush I removed this. Since the background and subjects are each now visible from different layers thanks to the mask I made, I can get right up the edge of their hair and bodies without damaging the visible layer and distorting the couple.

• The next step is to add use the add noise filter to make the two different layers match in grain.You can see below how the added noise makes the two layers blend together better.
  

•  Finally I merged the two layers and used the healing brush to touch up any last spots that didn't look smooth. The final result is a wrinkle free backgrounds, a look of a more shallow depth of field on the subjects and a suede-like quality to the fabric. Much better!

Here is the final product again.

Now I must say something here about how important it is to try to do things right in camera so you don't spend hours fixing little mistakes in Photoshop. In my opinion, Photoshop is best used as a creative tool to enhance already creative and interesting images. It is not a substitute for correctly applied knowledge, the right equipment or an answer for lazying shooting habits. I spent 4 hours editing a dozen images with this black background. It would have taken me half the time to just iron the black fabric if circumstances allowed. As great as Photoshop can be, it's not the answer to ever photographic problem and I feel a good photographer shoots smart and does everything possible they can to create the best image when the shutter clicks and not hours of mouse clicks later. That being said, tomorrow: More photoshop tutorials!

If you would like to see more images from this session please visit my facebook page. Don't forget to become a fan!

Salon Photos

Due to unforeseen circumstances, Salon Dolche' had to reschedule today last minute so I thought instead I'd show you the work I did for them earlier this year. There were 7 models in total, each stylist doing one hair style each and all of them looking for very different results. My job was to create photographs that matched their vision with all the same equipment and seamless backgrounds. Here's the results.

Background: Light Gray
Exposure:1/60 @f10 ISO 200

Stylists Vision: 1960's styling


Each stylist wanted to represent a different era and look, while still keeping it modern. Knowing this, and that the hair had to look AMAZING I used a very strong hair/rim light from camera left as well as an umbrella on camera right for fill on her face. Their was also a background light set to 1/2 power. Though this doesn't match lighting and photographic technique of the time, I felt the hair and clothing more then pulled off the look and I took some creative license to shoot however I wanted.

Background: Light Gray w/ cyan gel on background light

Exposure:1/60 @f11 ISO 200

Stylists Vision: 1980's


For this image I used intentional lens flair and a cyan gel since when I think of the 80's those two things instantly come to mind. To produce the flair I simply turned the hair light so it was shooting ever so slightly into the lens. It also provided nice separation along her left side where her shirt might have blended into the background. The girlie Mohawk, was a little bit much for me, plus the stylist kept asking the model to look "meaner". Can't decide if she looks mean or oversexed...

Background: White
Exposure:1/80 @f14 ISO 200

Stylist's Vision: 1940's movie starlet, Dutch Painting



The stylist designed this hair style to mimic the look and feel of the feather boa the model was wearing. She wanted something that felt like a cross between a early Hollywood portrait and the Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer's. The pose is an adaption of the painting and the lighting is the broad lighting often used when photographing for movie posters during that era. Her hair was dyed this shade of red and I love how it looks with her green eyes.

Background: White
Exposure:1/4 @f18 ISO 200

Stylists Vision:  Old Hollywood style portrait



Finally we have the black and white image that most closely mirrors it's inspiration piece. Again the stylist wanted an old Hollywood look, but she wanted this image to easily be mistaken for the real thing, so black and white was an obvious choice. My favorite part was dragging the shutter to get the trail of smoke. We shot about a dozen of these until the most was just perfect. For the lighting I used the classic butterfly lighting pattern but to put my own spin on it I used the hair light as the key to bring up the light on the left of her face. I love the three different tones it creates on her face. No photoshop necessary. It was fun to geek out on this one.

Tomorrow: The photographer's Christmas List.

The Power of Color

A few days ago I waxed poetic about the genius that is Black and White photography. Today I want to go over a little bit about the science of photographing color and how to see the color of light.

In case you didn't know, temperature has a lot to do with making a beautiful color image. For a detailed explanation I suggest you spend some time on Wikipedia. Start with Color Temperature, followed by White Balance, and end with Color Photography. Very educational but possibly a layman's definition might also be helpful? I'll do my best.

Basically the colors we see in the world around us all exist within the visible electromagnetic spectrum. As light enters our atmosphere and comes in contact with gases and other objects, different wavelengths of light (or different colors of light) are absorbed and radiated. Thus trees look green since through the process of photosynthesis plants absorb mainly the shorter wave lengths of light (greens and blues). The sky looks blue because gases and dust in the atmosphere trap and blue wavelengths while allowing others to pass by. And I look a pasty shade of white when outside because in Seattle the sun isn't visible through the dense cloud cover 3/4 of the year. 

The colors in the spectrum vary not only in wavelength and frequency but also in temperature. These are measured in Kelvins. For example incandescent lights tend to vary but are approx. 3000 Kelvins. Daylight (at mid day) is around 5000 K and older florescent lights are closer to 7500K. (Note: Florescent lights today actually come in a variety of different temperatures but most cameras still have a florescent setting that are based on higher Kelvin temperatures.)  Our eyes adjust to these color shifts so we don't often notice the difference, but our cameras do! Here are some samples to show you what I mean.

All three photos were taken with flash, but the cameras color balance has been adjusted to show the shift. Back in the old days you would need to use different kinds of film or a variety of filters, each balanced to to match the temperature of the available light. This was difficult for those of us shooting events or on location in all different situations. With digital, it's easy to adjust the color balance and achieve the correct color. OR you can use the shift to your advantage and shoot using the "wrong" settings and mimic the look of cross processing. This is a style that was very popular in the 1990's print media and film. It's done by processing slide film in chemicals designed for negative film (C-41) or negatives film in slide film chemicals(E-6).  Here is a tutorial of how to get this same look with a digital file with photoshop. Below is the same photo as above "cross processed"  and the original. Which is your favorite?

The color shifts towards the red and yellow while contrast is enhanced. A lot of times this same style would be done with purposefull over exposures by between 2-6 stops, thus blowing out the highlights and exaggerating the look of the cross processing. I'd love to see your examples of the same kind of style. Feel free to post images and links here. To view more of my work please visit Irene Jones Photography Online.

Tomorrow blog: Top ten photography blogs to follow (In my opinion.)

Following the Golden Rule of Thirds

As I mentioned yesterday, the rule of thirds is a key design element. By placing the subject pretty much anywhere but dead center, an image instantly becomes more interesting. This is even true when an image (like the one above utilizes negative space.

The rule of thirds suggests that you break up an image into 9 quadrants and position your subject along the intersections. Here's what I mean. In the photo to the right her eyes are directly along the top half of the image and her body is mainly in the farthest right quadrant. It's a visually dynamic design, complimented by perfect lighting; if I do say so myself. In fact the lighting here is a combination of two monolight flash(s), three Nikon speed-lights, and a a few colored gels.  Who wants to see a diagram detailing how I shot it? I thought you might.

The exposure ended up being 1/100 @ f 14 with an ISO of 200. This image was shot for Salon Dolche' in Everett, Washington. My goal was maximum shine and detail on the hair, so I used my hair-light (shown on the diagram as monolight 1) as my main light and pointed it directly at the back of her head. I wanted a narrow beam of light so I used tin foil to make a snoot. Why tin foil you say? Well the salon had tons of it on hand, plus it has a great reflective quality and it can be molded into any size or shape. It is great for creating specular highlights and it's cheep. The second monolight was turned to half power and acted as a fill on her face. I also used a speed-light to help fill in the right side of the model's cheek but since I didn't want to destroy the beautiful wrap around quality of the fill light off to my left, I stopped the speed-light flash attached to the hot-shoe down three stops so all it would do is soften shadows. (Note: this flash was set to commander mode so all lights would fire when the shutter was released) I also diffused the on camera flash and monolight 2 so the classic loop lighting pattern (the shadow on her cheek of her nose) wouldn't disappear, but stay soft. The two other speed-lights on the background were set to manual power in remote mode to illuminate the background and remove any shadows. I wanted a blueish purple to offset the red of the model's hair. By powering them at different levels I was able to create a gradient across the background. A lot can go into a simple shot, but being able to execute something exactly the way I've envisioned it in my head is always a joy.

The images submitted to Salon Dolche' were more then a hit and can be seen at their salon.

Tomorrow: Advice on how to photograph kids and help for parents on not stressing out during a photo session.