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Setting Goals for 2014

I love this time of year.  I will typically spend the week between Christmas and New Years every reflecting on last year and setting goals for the upcoming year. I find this really clears my mind and gets me ready for the new year.

Goals 2014
I was excited to find this video from the legendary Zig Ziglar on goal setting. Zig was a sales mans best motivator. I spent endless hours listening to his tapes while making sales calls in my territory right out of college. Right now I’m thinking about whats ahead for 2014 and what the possibilities are.

Here’s a couple good Zig quotes on goal setting.

“If you want to reach a goal. You must see the reaching in your own mind before you actually arrive at your goal.”

“A goal properly set is halfway reached”

What do you want to accomplish in 2014? Do you have written down goals for 2014?

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Body Evolution – Model Before and After

How much retouching is to much? Here’s what the guys  over at Global Democracy have to say about it. What are your thoughts?

We all now know that seeing thousands of “perfect” body types in the mass media is having negative affects on young girls and more. Airbrushing as a practice should be discouraged when it transforms otherwise permanent features on models. A “mandatory disclaimer” to state that a model has had her physical body manipulated on a computer is a very simple step in the right direction to addressing the harm that we’re causing.

 

photoshop-body-evolution.1

 

 

Have we gone to far? What are your thoughts?

 

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Lighting Black On Black

This is a shot I took a couple months ago for a training video I was shooting. I thought shooting the black dress on the black background would have a lot of impact. The key when shooting a black object on a black background is to create separation from the background. The best way to create separation from the background is creating highlights on the black dress. This was accomplished by placing two edge lights behind the model at a 45 degree angle. See lighting diagram below.

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Main light – 4′ x 6′ softbox
Fill – 4′ x 6′ silver reflector
Edge lights – 1′ x 4′ soft box

Black_on_black_diagram2

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Window Light Photography

This  shot was taken during a seminar at my studio a last month ago with Rick Ferro.  It was raining outside and we had promise as part of the class to do some available light shooting. So we placed the subject next to the window in the lobby. 

Window light is one of the most beautiful (and cheapest) types of light a photographer can use. 
 
Where do you think soft boxes came from? Photographers trying emulate this beautiful quality of light in the studio. The easiest way to understand window light is to think of the windows as a very fixed soft box.  Therefore, the size of the window will affect the quality of light just like the size of the soft box in the studio will affect the quality of light on the subject. The larger the window, the softer the light. 
 
The biggest difference between window light and a soft box is in the studio you can move the soft box in relation to the subject to achieve the quality of light and the lighting pattern you want. When working with window light you will have to move the subject in relation to the window.  For the image below, we positioned the subject to achieve a short lighting pattern on her face and  used a  silver reflector as the fill (see set shot). 

 

I love shooting wide open whenever possible and shot this one with my Canon 85mm set at f2. This allowed the limited depth of field and takes the viewers attention away from the rather blah background. 

Technical Stuff:
Main light: Window
Fill: Silver reflector
Canon 5D Mark II
Lens: Canon 85mm
1/500 sec @ f1.2
ISO 400

 

IMG_9543-8x10

The set-up.

 IMG_9528

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My New Toy – Photogenic Varibeam

I love the look of the old style Hollywood glamour photographers from the 50’s and love the lights they used. Yesterday I just found and purchased an old Photogenic – Varibeam Fresnel 1000 watt light to add to my collection of lights. It is great for getting the lighting used in the 40s and 50s Glamour shots. This particular unit has control to make a spot or flood on the unit. Then with the special Projection lens attachment you can do precise focused spots of light in beams hence ” Varibeam”. It is also great prop for retro Hollywood look. Weighing in at over 50lbs., it’s will not be part of our on-location arsenal.

Although, it’s not really about the equipment – it’s about how you use it. Painting with Light…. placing light where you want it, not blasting with a 4×6 softbox. Not that’s there is anything wrong with that, this style of lighting will separate you from the rest of the photographers.

I will be posting on this topic some more in the upcoming weeks. Here’s a shot taken using this style of lighting. By the way… it’s great for Black & Whites – just like the Hollywood Glamour of the past.

Hollywood Glamour

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Lighting Black on Black

This is a shot I took a couple week ago for a training video I was shooting for StudioStyles. I thought shooting the black dress on the black background would have a lot of impact. The key when shooting a black object on a black background is to create separation from the background. The best way to create separation from the background is creating highlights on the black dress. This was accomplished by placing two edge lights behind the model at a 45 degree angle. See lighting diagram below.

1723 178

 
Main light – 4′ x 6′ softbox
Fill – 4′ x 6′ silver reflector
Edge lights – 1′ x 4′ soft box
 

Black on black diagram2

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Studio Lighting with Photogenic Mini-Spots

This set-up was done using 5 tungsten continuous light sources. The lights used for this set up are Photogenic Mini-spots. These lights are a lot of fun to work with, and provide a will you can only achieve with his style of lighting. We use these lights a lot for Hollywood style glamour and when doing character studies.

05_continuous light_IMG_5940-1
A couple things to consider when using tungsten continuous lights are:

1. Make sure you get lights that have focusing capability.

2. It it is also important to be able to control the output of the lights. For this particular light we had to purchase third party Rio stats
to be able to control the output

3. You will also want to lights that can accept barn doors. This is critical for light control.

 05_continuous light_Amanda 2A7Y7149

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Simple One Light Set-Up

Studio lighting doesn’t have to be complicated to get great results. This is a simple 1 light set-up using a Bogen MonoSpot aimed directly at the subject

Check out the pull-back shot below to see my exact lighting set-up.

I was sitting on the stool in the bottom left of the frame. I started right next to the light and then rolled around getting different angles.

Here’s one of my favorites from the session.

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Shop Light Photography

HI Guys, I just did this entire session with about $20 worth of lighting. Here’s the deal – I’ve have been getting a lot of e-mail’s from newer photographers saying things like.. if I only had all the equipment you had etc… I could produce the same results. This got me thinking (which is very scary) that I should do an entire session with very basic lighting or possibly even my pocket camera to prove that it’s not just the equipment, but the the understanding of how to use the equipment and how to “see light”. Maybe I will do my next session with my iphone, or my Canon G10.

Here’s one of the images from the shoot. Let me know what you think and give me some feedback as to what you would like me to blog about next.

IMG_6911

Here’s a pull back shot from the entire session. One shop light overhead on boom as the main light, one down low to fill in the shadows, and one on boom as the hair light. The black thing in front is the fan I used to blow her hair to create some movement in the image.

 

IMG_6897

 

Equipment: Canon 5D Mark II, 1/200 sec @ f2.8., 70mm – 200mm lens, ISO 800.

Keep shooting… Mike

 

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Sekonic Introduces World’s First Touchscreen Operated Light Meters

Sekonic introduces the new LITEMASTER PRO series of touchscreen light control meters. Ideal for all types of storytellers, the L-478 series offers light measurement and control for photographers and filmmakers alike, plus additional wireless flash triggering and power control in the L-478DR model.

Whether it’s filmmaking or photography, great storytellers use light as a main character and as a method to define the mood, focus and setting. Having a tool that allows you total control over dynamic range and multiple light sources make you confident about the craft while focusing on the art.