Night Portraits

James (left) and his brother Michael (right) braved a cold January evening for me. They stood on a street corner (Terice stood in the street holding a light stand) All so I could put three of my favorite things together: strobe, motion blur, and mixed lighting (flash with incandescent ambient light).

I've talked a lot lately about indoor lighting and I felt a little claustrophobic so into the chilly air we went. During the hour we were shooting we met a whole host of street life in downtown Everett and tried hard to make James smile to no avail.

This shot is straight forward enough. Two speedlights, one for each guy and a slow shutter speed. Because the flash freezes the action I didn't have to worry about them being sharp. I just had to put my camera on a tripod and wait for a car to pass behind them. At one point a bus drove by and the blur was great, only problem was both guys blinked.

This is a decent shot, not exactly what I had in mind but it will do for tonight. I had a client meeting and we were running out of time, so Terice and I will have to try again next week. I do like having the guys at opposite sides of the frame though.

Here's the set up.

Exposure was 1/8 @F4.5. ISO 200 with 50mm lens.

Night Portraits

Last December my best friend from high school and her husband did a portrait session downtown Seattle at night. The carousel made for a nice backdrop. The exposure was 1/5 @ f5.0. The long shutter speed created the blur. The flash is what creates the stop action on the couple. One speedlight was on camera left and there was another on camera right behind the couple and several feet away. There is also a fill card and flash just below them to fill in any shadows. The flash is actually pointed down at the card so the light will bounce back.
When doing this kind of shot you'll need to use slow sync flash mode. Meter for the ambient light and flash. Set your shutter speed for the ambient reading and the aperture for the flash. While it's okay for your subjects to move a little, sudden fast moments will show up as a blur, so keeping still is helpful.

The toughest part of the shoot was working around the crowd. This is often an issue when shooting in busy public spaces. It's important to be aware of everything in the frame and place your subject accordingly. On occasion though, crowds can be helpful. Here's another blur shot of Anna and Hideo where the passing pedestrians add interest.

 
This shot was more difficult because I needed to make them look as if they were lit by street lights only and not flash. The single speedlight was placed on a 7 ft tall stand just out of frame on camera left. The exposure is 1/6 @ F6.3. The flash was set to match the ambient light meter reading.

Fussy Baby

I had plans to shoot some christmas lights tonight but I spent my entire evening with a very fussy baby. He's normally very easy going so naturally I was concerned. He's sleeping now but the magic hour is long past and my memory card empty. However, The Strobist blog post about Christmas lights pretty much sums up the technique. Hopefully he'll be more cooperative tomorrow and I'll be able to show you the shots I was intending for today.

Panorama: How to shoot and stitch with CS4

When I was in college one of my assignments was to shoot and then combine photos into a panorama. Back then we were using Photoshop 7 the software that would put together panoramas was just barely hitting the market. It was still better to do the work yourself, one photo at a time. Today the process is uncomplicated and available to anyone with CS4. Here's what you need to do.

1. Choose your location. I love night shots and downtown Seattle. So during a warm summer night I spent an hour on the corner of Pike and 4th Ave shooting a variety of frames.
2. Keep the following things in mind while shooting: use a 50mm lens to avoid distortion, overlap enough to provide a reference point, and use a tripod. It's hard to keep the same position when hand holding and the slightest movements on your part can ruin your hard work. Plus if you choose to do a night shot like me, your exposures will be for several seconds each. I would also suggest shooting with a small aperture, say F22 for maximum depth of field.
3. Once you've taken your shots and selected the frames you want to use open them in Photoshop CS4. You can also select a folder where your images are, but I like to open them first just to make sure they are the ones I wanted since I always shoot more versions then I need, just in case.

4. Select File>Automate>Photomerge to start the process. A window will open listing a number of different options for how to best create the final image. Feel free to experiment with each of these to get the results you want. Auto worked for this image and so did Reposition, both options will probably work for most people, especially if you follow my advice and use a 50mm lens and tripod.
5.  Add Open files and then go make a sandwich while CS4 does the work.
6. Crop your image since there will be jagged edges and edit your image for color, sharpness, and contrast as necessary.
7. Buy a very long, skinny frame.

Tomorrows blog post:Color balance and correction.

Flash + Night = Fun!

This image was shot at Cami and John's Wedding last year in Wenatchee WA. A few minutes before the guests, Bride, and Groom began to poor out of the reception with fireworks in hand Terice and I headed out to the parking lot to find this lovely specimen of a get-a-way car. It came complete with fuzzy dice on the rear view. Night shots have always been a passion of mine; and looking as this car, I knew what I had to do. I quickly positioned my camera on a tripod and grabbed two speed-lights; one in each hand. Then with my exposure set to capture the ambient light around me and from the building behind, I said to Terice, "Watch this," then I madly dashed around the car in circles firing both flashes over and over again. Terice looked puzzled. With a heavy click, the shutter snapped closed and the viewfinder lit up. I'm pretty sure her only comment was "Whoa, can I do that too?" Thus was my dear sister/assistant  first introduced to the wonderful world of painting with light.Talk about on the job training.

The basic idea of this technique is to illuminate areas of an image with pretty much any light source you can find and create something that didn't exist on it's own. Use everything that emits light from sparklers, flashlights, LED's, Portable flash equipment, you name it. The key is to play with it until it works. In the case of this image I wanted there to be great depth of field so that both the building and car would be in sharp focus. I also knew that by choosing a smaller aperture I would get a star-burst effect from the bright full moon. The goal all along was to make sure that my camera was seeing what my eyes were seeing.

After metering the available light coming from the tungsten lights on the building (tungsten lights look warm and yellowish when you shoot at a daylight or flash color balance) I knew my f-stop would be f14. Then I chose the long shutter speed; 30 seconds. I also set the camera to a timer so I would have 2 seconds to get myself in position and avoid camera shake after pressing the shutter. Due to the long exposure and my movement, I became invisible to the camera, the only trace of me is the flash's glow left behind on the length of the car.  I would have loved to do this shot again and instead of using the test button, use the speed-light's modeling light feature for a more continuous highlight along the body of the car, but just after this shot was taken the sidewalk began to fill with guests and I had to do some "work."

Oh and as a side note, in the original image, the moon was on the left hand side of the frame. I didn't like it there, I thought it was distracting but I didn't want to remove it completely, so I just moved it over. It was a simple fix with the healing brush in Photoshop.
Here's a few more from their wedding just in case you're interested.

Thanks again to Terice for adding so much to every wedding we shoot together! To view more wedding photography by Irene Jones and Terice Lehman visit Irene Jones Photography Online.

Tomorrow:  Toy Cameras and Lenses to try.

Comming soon...

I was enjoying a quite moment, which are far to few in my house these days when an idea struck me. I'm a genius; so this happens quite frequently. The idea? A photo a day. One photo, describing one technique I use professionally and how you can do it too. Just one moment in time for each day of a year. I've been working as a professional photographer for ten years now and along the way I have learned a lot, most out of trial and error and long grueling assignments in college. Looking for a new challenge, I thought it would be fantastic to limit myself and see what I could make out of each opportunity. So starting November 1, 2009 I will be on a mission; capture something new, mundane, or somewhere in between, but to do it in a way I've never done before.

As photographers and camera operators alike, so many of us think AFTER pressing the shutter. My goal is to create truly innovative work before I even remove the lens cap, and then execute it with skill and precision.  All images will include a detailed explanation of the process, maybe even a lighting diagram with cute stick figures, and style information to create each photo; that is accessible to photo-geek and layman alike.

Topics will include:

• Working with natural light
• Night photography
• People on location (day and night)
• Flash in Daylight
• Cheep substitutes for expensive photo equipment
• Macro photography
• Self-Portraiture
• Wedding photography
• Painting with light
• Toy Cameras/Pin Hole Photography
• Color Balance
• Panning, motion and blur
• Enviromental portraiture 
• Studio photography
• Still life
• Expanding your point of view
• Reflection
• And 348 other topics yet to be chosen...
  

Maybe I'll even learn something along the way. You might too. So please, fasten your seat-belts, and follow my blog. See you all November 1.