Category Archives: Model Shoots

Using CGI In your Images

Over the last couple of years, I’ve moved more towards the “digital art” end of the spectrum with my photography. I still use a lot of on-set effects such as fog, camera movement with long exposures, props/sets and dramatic lighting, however I started adding in more elements in the post-production phase. I’ve been adding textures to walls and floors for years but I’ve recently started adding more and more effects in post. I think it started with the cosplay shoots. These really needed some sort of setting and the characters often went hand-in-hand with effects such as energy weapons, lightning and so on. You can see a good example of what I mean in the last post “Shooting for Post-Production”, where we shot and produced a mock movie-poster for a an imaginary She-Ra movie.

Wings in Daz Studio using the iRay preview mode
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Project Noir part II

_OHL4540-WebsiteThis time we concentrated on one shot – a backlit interior concept with volumetric light (i.e. light given volume by some medium – in this case, an even fog).  Caspar reprised his previous outfit, now complete with a nice black Fedora.   I found some 20 year-old Gauloise Caporal white cigarettes when we moved house last year that really looked the part in a soft blue case.    We also had a crystal decanter, glass, and the airgun we used on the last shoot. All of these went onto a nice period desk from another room in the old manor house.

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Project Noir–Part One

_OHL5770-WebsiteSomeone once said something like “Cinematographers kick photographers’ asses, all day long”.  I can’t remember who this was, and the Intarweb doesn’t seem to know either.  However, even though these are two different art forms, I do find that things some photographers seem to think of as new and exciting developments , are not news to DP’s and movie lighting directors who’ve been creating mood and drama with light for decades.

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More GoBO options for your Lightblaster

_DSC1989-Edit-WebsiteIf you love the Light Blaster from Spiffy Gear, but want more GoBOs  (“GOes Before Optics” – the little masks that go in front of the light, but before the focusing lens on the front of any spot projector), then you have a number of options:  use 35mm slides, mount Rosco size E circular gobos on card or the little plastic adapter you can download and print, or just make your own.   Whilst there are companies that will print digital images onto 35mm transparency film, I’m not looking at that option here – I nearly always want a simple, graphical shape for my work, and metal gobos are the way to go for the best results – as they always block all the light where there is no hole cut in them, and have crisper edges.

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One Light

You can do so much with just one light.  One £30 YN460-II for example.  There really is no excuse for not having at least one flash 🙂

Robert Harrington gave a great presentation at the B&H theatre on getting many looks out of one light – and you can watch it here.  I thought this would make a great live demo for the camera club I belong to and worked out 10 or so looks to present within a 2 hour slot.   I ran through them in a practice session with some fellow photographers and we got it done in 1:45.  It was going to take longer on the night as I’d be waffling on about the light as we went – and hopefully, there would be questions!

Here’s my pick of the looks we did on the night with model Paris Spencer, who always does a great job on these shoots.  For all of these shots, the camera is in manual exposure at 1/160th at F/8 and ISO 64 to 640.  The flash is in manual, and when off the camera, is triggered by using the pop-up in commander mode.   The popup does not fire during the exposure, it’s just used to send data and commands to the remote SB900.

We started with the flash on the camera – left, and the first shot is direct flash.  When should you use this?  Well, probably never unless it’s a bit of fill but as a main light, it sucks.  I wanted to show just how bad flash lighting could be, so we took the mugshot, on the left.  Paris looks like she just got arrested…

 

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The Missing Piece of the Lightblaster kit.

IMG_1879-WebsiteI love the Lightblaster, but as a Nikon shooter I don’t have any Canon EOS mount lenses lying about.  Lightblaster will sell you an EOS to F-mount adapter, but quite frankly (do I owe Frank D a fee  every time I use that phrase now? 😛 ) that thing is dangerous:  it has no release lever and you have to practically prise it off your lens.

You could try trawling eBay for old Canon lenses, but here’s the thing:  Canon changed their lens mount in the 1980’s to get AF working properly way before Nikon,  and well anybody tbh – that’s why every sports shooter IMG_1881-Websiteon the planet still shoots Canon today, but the consequence is that there are no old Canon EOS lenses  (ie old enough to be bought at junk prices).

Plus, you really need a wide aperture lens to use with the Lightblaster – or you’ll just lose most of the light.

These Yongnuo 50mm f/1.8 lenses are £35 – or around $50.  and they have AF!  I have no idea what the image quality is like, and I never will as I don’t own any EOS bodies, but for £35 I’m happy for it to hang off the Lightblaster, and it weighs nothing.

Go check out Lightblaster:-

In the USA:  http://www.light-blaster.com/
In the EU at Frank Doorhof’s shop:  http://www.frankdoorhof.com/store/images/lightblaster-2.html
..and in the UK at Inspired PhotoGear http://inspiredphotog.com/light-blaster/

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ER.. FOG! ACTION!

_DSC2534-Edit-Purple-PortEmilia Gaza contacted me recently to ask if I’d be interested in shooting some dance/burlesque with her.  Her portfolio notes over on PurplePort are filled with such enthusiasm and passion for dance and to create images of it I immediately said yes!

There is now a short BTS video on this shoot here!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2FlStiMJGU

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Beauty Shoot

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It’s been a while since I did any classic beauty style shots in he studio, and I’ve learnt a lot since the last one.   Mainly I’ve been influenced by Joel Grimes in recent months for this sort of look – joelgrimes.com   Go check out Joel’s work – he’s been working as a photographer for over 25 years and has honed his craft to a fine level of detail, and that’s what his style is all about – the lighting, shooting distances and angles are very finely tuned.  That doesn’t mean he gets a tape measure out, in fact one of the hallmarks of Joel’s approach to his work is that nothing matters except the result – he’s not interested in meter readings, modelling lights, histograms, ratios or any of that stuff – if it looks good on the back of the camera  – it’s right.  Having studied his work both via his website, YouTube, and a couple of his videos on KelbyOne – http://kelbyone.com/members/joelgrimes/ I booked into my friend John Gannon’s studio http://www.studio-de-lumiere.co.uk/ with model Jessica-Jane Taylor and Make-Up and Hair stylist Emily Rose Connor to put what I had learned to use 🙂

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Flinging Flour

This was the second of 3 shots we did with the Lencarta SuperFast lights.  This sort of shot is something you only get so many goes at: you run out of flour, coloured powder, and of course, eventually, the model is so covered in flour it changes the look of the images.   Shooting continuously on high speed (well as fast as my D800E will go anyway – the lights will go faster) makes it all the more likely to get a usable frame from these sets.

This was the first time I’d attempted this shot, and while we got a few reasonable images – it’s not quite achieved the drama I want.  I think I know why and I’ll come back to that at the end of this blog.

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