FALL PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS FROM A PROFESSIONAL; Part 1

I’m looking for artistic drama when I do fall colors. I’ve found that the drama is in the contrasts of color and/or lighting. The lighting I look for is back-light or directional side light to pick up detail.  That means I go out in the morning, for soft Front-light, or the evening (about an hour before sunset) for Back-light or Directional (side) light.

To compositionally zero-in on the drama, whether I’m doing a relative big view or a few leaves, my lens is usually zoomed-in to 200mm and sometimes I have my 1.4x extender mounted for a little more compression effect.  In addition, I’m very careful about depth-of-field and subject sharpness in ALL of my photography. Doesn’t matter if I’m doing portraits or fine art I want my subject to be sharp and in most cases I want the background soft (controlled by shallow depth-of-field) for good separation. That being said—even though I own the superb Canon 70-200mm f2.8 lens—I never use it at f2.8 for portraits or fine art objects. The depth-of-field at f2.8 (or 3.5 and 4.0) is just too shallow, particularly when you move in close at 200mm. 

This first image, done recently, is a nice example of direct, directional, sunlight about 20 minutes before sunset.

 f6.3 @ 1/800 sec., ISO 400; lens @ 175mm

You have to be careful with front light when photographing any powerful colors to avoid chromic-clipping (blowing out detail as the colors “bloom”). That’s why we wait for the late (magic hour) light—it’s warmer and softer—which lowers the dynamic range of the scene. 

You’ll notice that my depth-of-field in this image is just enough at f6.3, to keep these two leaves sharp while knocking the entire background way out of focus.  

This next image is also side lit by the setting sun, but a different technique…

f11.0 @ 1/200 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 192mm

This was done about 45 minutes before sunset. The focus of this image was, of course, that great fence. Since I wanted to photograph down the fence and capture that great shadow it cast on the dry grass, I put my 1.4x extender on my 70-200mm, f2.8 lens, and walked towards it to get this crop. Because I’m photographing down the length of the fence I needed lots of depth-of-field, so I went to f11.0, which gave me a shutter speed I could still hand hold.

Sad to say this old farmstead was recently sold and the developers leveled the 8-acre site—the house, barn, all the trees and this fence are all gone! :(

In the next part I’ll talk about back-lighting, then followed by using morning light.  ’Til next week…

Author:  Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site:  http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

SENIOR PORTRAITS WITH HORSES; PART 2

Last week I shared the pictorial—more backed-off—images from one of our senior sessions. It’s important when doing a senior session to do enough variety to not only highlight the senior’s character and interests, but to give the parents more things to choose from and ultimately purchase!

The following images are the more formal, close-up, portraits that we do on every portrait session.  We learned a long time ago that if you try to be that “pictorial artist” and only do the backed-off, full figures, showing lots of environment images in a portrait session, the clients would invariably want us to crop way-in to make “real” portraits out of them. And the subjects better be looking AT the camera and SMILING too, if you want to make a big sale!

To that end this image was a big hit…

f5.0 @ 400 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 200mm

Even the horse is looking at the camera and “smiling”!

This was a required portrait to show her substantial involvement in the F.F.A. (Future Farmers of America), which is big here in Idaho. So, we did several set-ups with her in the blue FFA jacket. Technically this portrait was done using my favorite lighting technique outdoors.  I simply moved them back into the shade of the barn so that the open sky is the key light on them—lowering the ratio—creating a nice soft light.  Meanwhile, we have a nice background of fall colors due to the timing of the session using the setting sun.  Nice separation is created by using an aperture of f5.0, with good bokeh, mostly due to my focal length of 200mm.

Changing clothes, and horses, I went for a completely different look since it’s now only an hour before actual sunset and the light is warming up…

f4.5 @ 1/2500 sec., ISO 400, Lens @ 200mm

I don’t usually put my portrait subjects in direct sunlight; the most notable exception is sunset at the beach—not so much now that we are here in Idaho! In this case I had a young lady with perfect skin and I wanted DRAMATIC lighting so why not?

Finally to show-off another of her interests she literally changed hats and got out her guitar.  Mom suggested she hop on the hood of their old pick-up truck and we resumed in the right of the setting sun.

 f5.0 @ 1/1600 sec., ISO 400; lens @ 168mm

I’m back on my ladder for these since I did not want to shoot UP her nose (or her dress!); this kept my camera at her eye level.  In addition the black and White adds a different look to the session.

As usual, should you have questions don’t hesitate to ask, comments are also welcome. ’Til next week…

Author:  Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site:  http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

SENIOR PORTRAITS WITH HORSES; PART 1

Planning and preparation are important in any portrait session, but when we do an outdoor session the most important aspect is Not compromising on lighting. I want perfect natural light with backlighting to bring out the colors-especially in the fall.

Part of the planning was scouting a new location (Eagle Island State Park here in Eagle, ID) where we could take people with their horses and have parking nearby. We have had avid horse enthusiasts suggest these “great locations” only to find that you could only access them with a horse miles into the back country! Since we don’t have horses we need our location to be accessible at least by 4x4 to bring in our camera gear (and back-ups), gobos, scrims, tripod and at least one ladder. 

We had already cancelled this gals photo session TWICE because of fully overcast sky (remember NO compromise!). I will not do an outdoor portrait session under an overcast sky as that kind of gray day just mutes all the colors—you have NO backlight—so you get no separation between the subject and the background. In addition the overcast sky creates a top light that promotes “raccoon eyes” giving people dark eye sockets. I want my backgrounds to be ALIVE with color—overcast sky creates DEAD backgrounds.

This session was going to be challenging since this gal was bringing TWO horses and wanted to do three or four clothes changes. She needed some official images done in her FFA (Future Farmers of America) clothes, showing the logos followed by casual clothes and then individuals without her horses.

This first image shows why I don’t compromise on the lighting…

f5.0 @ 1/400 sec., ISO 400 Lens @ 200mm

Here we have terrific directional rim lighting on both horses while we have soft sky light on her face, because the horse behind her is acting as my gobo—blocking the direct sunlight that was hitting her face on one side.

I must add that the reason these horses look so good (aside from the lighting) is that their ears are perfectly erect—a must have in equine portraits—due to the experienced assistance of this young lady’s mother and sister who were always behind me with their noise makers (like the effective rocks in a box) when I needed the horses at attention!

Close in photos are great, but I always want a master pictorial or scenic image that is more appropriate as a large wall portrait when we do horse sessions. Our goal is to put photographic prints on people’s walls that can be viewed as art.

f8.0 @ 1/1000 sec., ISO 400; lens @ 125mm

Directional light, fall colors, that old leaning out building and all the subjects looking in the same direction—it’s a miracle! No, mom and sister were doing their thing with those noise makers! 

I always try for some images of people walking their steeds as well…

f5.0 @ 1/400 sec., ISO 400; lens @ 200mm

In Part 2 I’ll show her closer-up individual portraits with clothes changes…

’Til next week…

Author:  Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

PORTRAIT OF A BLACK LAB OUTSIDE

Here in Idaho we do a lot of portraits ( www.TheStorytellersUsa.com ) of people with their animals.  By far the most technically difficult are black horses, dogs and cats WITH their owners—especially if their humans are fair conplextionecd caucasians.  The issue then is lighting for the wide dynamic range of the white skin versus the jet black of the animal.

How do we as professionals handle this?  It’s no different than our film days. We place our subjects in open shade one or two hours before sunset, which brings the light levels in the background down to a recordable level.  Exposure is measured with a hand-held INCIDENT Light Meter—thus measuring only the light falling ON our subject (not what’s in the background).

Your camera’s meter is a reflectance meter that sees your subject (the incident meter dos not see the subject—only the light falling on it), and its designed to average the world to 18% gray. So, if you “zero” the meter on white snow or a black lab it will render both as gray. 

These methods takes care of exposure and dynamic range at the same time…

f5.0 @ 1/160 sec., ISO 800; lens @ 135mm

The background has some nice colors—even some bokeh with the aperture at f5.0 — and the dog has great detail through out.

Using these techniques, with the dog’s humans in place, creates the balance necessary for our digital camera to record this much dynamic range…

f6.3 @ 1/200 sec,m ISO 400; Lens @ 200mm

Some photographers may say why not photograph the dog in direct sunlight to really show it’s detail? I have done that on occasion—but, I would Never put people in such harsh light!

So, let’s compare direct sunlight with open shade on this black lab…

f5.6 @ 1/400 sec., ISO 400

With direct sunlight we have the dogs shinny black coat creating a lot of specular high lights—and that alone can play havoc with many digital camera’s ability to record those highlights without clipping. (My Canon 5D MKII did handled it well). However, my biggest complaint here is with the dog and background in the same hard light there is little separation of the dog with it’s background; the dog is merging into the background. In addition the dog is actually squinting it’s eyes in the harsh light.  

Now compare it with open shade…

f5.0 @ 1/160 sec., ISO 800

The dog looks more relaxed; it’s eyes are open wide.  There’s nice detail without all the specular highlights and we have dramatic separation of the dog and the background because of the DIFFERENT light sources.

Ask your questions or leave a comment…’Til next week…

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site:  http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

JAPANESE TRADITIONAL BRIDAL PORTRAITS - PART 2

This portrait session was done at the Japanese Hakone Gardens in Saratoga, California during their annual Matsuri where I was their official photographer. 

In Part 1 I showed some images of the bride in the traditional all white outfit with the head shroud—which symbolically covers her head to hide the “Horns of Jealousy”. In this part she has changed into the very colorful reception outfit and removed the head shroud.  

During the Matsuri there are traditional Japanese musicians, dancers and artists who combine their talents to recreate the look and feel of Japanese culture centuries old—well aided by the authentic Hakone Gardens ambience.

One of my favorite events was the work by a Japanese performance artist that set-up two very large canvases (each 10 feet x 20 feet) and then painted them using brooms to the accompaniment of traditional music. Then while the paint was still wet he would toss or blow colored powders from his hands to accent the black Japanese calligraphy. Of course, as soon as he was done I HAD to get my bride in front of these perfect backgrounds for yet another look to her portraits.

One of my favorites…

 f4.0 @ 1/400 sec., ISO 400; lens @ 200mm

With the Hakone pond in-between us, my lens at 200mm, I used hand signals to position her where I wanted her to stand, position of her shoulders and where to look.  At least with the pond between us none of the many amateur photographers in attendance could step in front of my camera! 

Close ups of the bride Not Looking at the Camera are one of my required portraits…

 f5.6 @ 1/800 sec., ISO 800; lens @ 200mm

Creating some nice Bokeh in the background; with my lens at 200mm the f-stop does not matter so much. Just like all weddings, I show the details of her ensemble…

f4.5 @ 1/1000 sec., ISO 800; lens @ 200mm

As I said in Part 1, moving the bride around the gardens for different looks (with a variety of backgrounds) is always my goal when I’m outside.  However, using only natural light when your subject is some distance from your camera position requires careful placement of the subject.  One of my basic rules is to not allow direct sunlight to strike my subject’s face (actual sunset light is the exception). Since we were doing these portraits between 3 and 4pm in May the light was high and harsh, so, I kept the sun behind her creating a powerful rim light…

f4.5 @ 1/500 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 200mm

You can see why traditional ethnic weddings are so much fun (and my favorite of all weddings). Their color and details are a joy to photograph and they enable to the photographer, with an artistic eye, to create a truly unique portfolio that will WOW both clients and prospective clients.

As always, have a question don’t hesitate to ask…’Til next week…

Author:  Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman, Certified

Training site:  http:www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http:www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

JAPANESE TRADITIONAL BRIDAL PORTRAITS - PART 1

Whenever I’m outside the studio ( http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com ) doing portraits on a location with good indoor and outdoor spots for photography two criteria are always the most important to me…

1)  Using Natural Light Everywhere.

2)  Working the location—moving my subject around during the session using as many of the different backgrounds that the location has to offer.

This portrait session was done at the Japanese Hakone Gardens in Saratoga, California during their biggest event of the year—their Matsuri—where I was their official photographer. This actual bride to be was there to demonstrate the look of a traditional Japanese bride. Because of all the other events I had to cover I only had an hour with her and to complicate things there were hundreds of spectators and what felt like hundreds of amateur photographers following us around the gardens getting in my way!  In addition, because there was a pond in the middle of the garden that often separated us I had to communicate with her via had signals (I had NO assistant on this session) to tell her where to stand, which way to face in a pose and where to move to for the next set-up.  Yelling didn’t work due to the constant music and PA announcements during the event.  Fortunately, she took direction well and we got a nice variety of images…

 f4.0 @ 1/800 sec., ISO 400; lens at 200mm

One of my favorite close-ups; I used Silver Efect Pro 2 to Sepia tone and enhance grain in this image.  I had fun working the the “hood” on her white outfit—it could be a scrim as in the last image or a gobo (blocking light) in the following image…

f5.6 @ 1/800 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 200mm

Sometimes you don’t have to show the whole face in a portrait—I like her little smile and eye lashes! And, to make this image more interesting I zoomed in to 200mm to create some nice Bokeh in the background. 

Note:  I found the bokeh FIRST then I placed her exactly where I wanted her to be to have the bokeh where I wanted it!

We went inside the cultural center because I found a great background with warm incandescent light and placed her near the open door to photograph her by natural light of course!

 f3.5 @ 1/160 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 80mm

The open door acted like a large window and created a nice contrast to the warm background lights. Because of these mixed color temperatures I did a custom white balance on just the light falling on her.  Natural light is not only the best light it’s easy to control!

I’ll continue with this really fun session in Part 2 next week. ’Til then…

Author:  Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman, Certified

Training site:  http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

SIMPLIFY YOUR FALL COLORS PHOTOGRAPHY

This time of year I see thousands of fall color images that are usually just record shots of a tree that has changed colors or worse a forrest of colorful trees. I think that the more a photographer shows of a given subject the less he has to say about it. The amateur photographer by taking a picture of a pretty forrest asks nothing of the viewer and often says nothing to the viewer about the scene.

As a professional photographic artist I prefer to narrow my view on most subjects and look for the unique details within a scene. I don’t do forrest and rarely photograph a whole single tree. I find far more interesting compositions when I move into the forrest and then I narrow my view further by using my telephoto lens to zero-in on special details….

 f8.0 @ 1/160sec., ISO 800 Lens @ 150mm

I like the first two weeks of October, so that I can get more of a range of colors—some leaves are still green while others are yellow to blazing red.

I like this image because the leaves really show well against the tree’s black bark. When walking under a tree’s canopy I like to look up for back lit leaves…

f6.3 @ 1320 sec., ISO 800 Lens @ 85mm

Here again, I have a nice color contrast between the orange/yellow leaves and all the green leaves higher up in the canopy.  And then sometimes the story can come down to one solitary leaf on the ground…

f8.0 @ 1/250 sec., ISO 400 Lens @ 200mm

Taken at sunset towards the end of October, this image is truly symbolic of fall. So, I urge those beginning photographers that want to hone their compositional skills to narrow your view (replace that wide angle with a telephoto zoom lens) and get INTO the forrest; Look for the Details!

I tell my students, “You can often show more by revealing less.”  HAVE FUN!

Author:  Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman, Certified

Training site:  http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com