Photographic Flash | Make Light Real

Come see me in Toronto - July 14th - 12-6pm

Neil July 10th, 2008

Here’s the program description:

Lighting for Creativity - click here to register!

Part1: Listen to Neil’s personal journey. And share his understanding the creative power light has brought to his image making process. Make the visual connection between creativity and light on many planes as we discuss the implications for our spirits, our businesses, and our cameras. You will be personally challenged to break through your own personal psychological limits before moving on to part two - in the field.

Part2: Light with Neil in the field. Neil will approach a location he has never been before, with a subject he’s never shot before and attempt to share with you the running dialog in his head as he ‘lights for creativity’ in bringing out the qualities of the location, subject and mood. His challenge will be to transform the location with creative and expressive power.

Part3: Finish with flair. Neil will download and photoshop his raw captures live while taking questions from the audience as he goes. If you think there’s some kind of dark magic locked up inside your computer, come check inside Neil’s as he accentuates the visual phenomenon in his photographs using Photoshop.

Sponsored by:
Central Portrait Branch - Professional Photographers of Ontario
Professional Photographers of Ontario

Click here to register. We welcome all skill levels, you’ll get something out of it!

Rate this:

3.2

Small softbox on location

Neil June 27th, 2008

Continuing my explanations from the gear I use - today again the small softbox:

So I was out on an engagement shoot and had done all the normal stuff and wanted a little something extra…

But the simple daylight angle was not very flattering and the busy environment of the playground rope piece made for a very messy image - cool - but a little too messy - what could I do quickly to improve the impact of my couple in the space…

Here I am climbing around searching for the right perspective….

Read on to see the final shot and read about my camera settings making it….
Continue Reading »

Exposure , Hear the Shadows , On Art , Photographic Flash , Photography Lighting , Shoe Flash Technique , learning
Comments(2)

FlashFlavor » more SOL inspiration

Neil June 25th, 2008

FlashFlavor » Blog Archive » more SOL inspiration

Read through for the details and some inspiring photography from Mexico by Matt and Sol.

Note the bending the direction of the sunlight…

I’d particularly like to discuss this second shot.

In terms of “Hear the Shadows” which is now a new category after my teaching experience in the UK reminded me how often photographers have a hard time breaking the barrier to seeing against the norm - to make extraordinary - flavorful images.

Seeing what is happening in the negative space - or shadow space always creates the mood in a photo.

You control the shadows - with the light - you don’t actually create the light…..let it sink in.

Here Sol created an interesting shape by backlighting the bride and side lighting the groom - the comparison of the two shadows is what’s interesting and creating the powerful interest.

I’ll also note that Sol created color contrast with the CTO gel - and split her background space with opposing gradients….the natural light is opposed by the fash, and the wall opposes the sky - very ying-yang

Rate this:

3.2

Hit the street with One Light!

Neil May 29th, 2008

I think Zack has produced the first dancable photographic learning DVD.

Break out your two step and Credit Card.

Rate this:

3.5 (1 person)

Using a small softbox in close proximity

Neil May 26th, 2008

If you can swallow this yucky corporate video there’s probably a nugget there for you.

I use the extra small softbox, as you can see in my bag, but I always use it hand held because the principle:

the larger your light source, the softer your light

Only applies if you are computing your exposure solely on the quantity of light that is coming from that source.

Your light source is relative to the subject.

A 18″ softbox is a small light source compare to a 70 inch man - so what is it good for?

Working close

I often use the ST-E2 transmitter and keep the flash on TTL allowing me to control the contrast using Exposure compensation on the camera. In this way, you can see how I’ve blended the daylight balance in the room - the tunsten source in the background - and finally the softbox providing the ‘key’ or main illumination shaping the subject.

There aren’t any shadows though, because my baseline exposure is the light in the room. I’ve used the soft box to create a shaping highlight. So there’s a bright shaped area, and a darker flatter area.

In this shot an assistant was holding the light (as I can only shoot hand held - light to my left). Here again you can see how I have blended the ambient and bumped it up with the softbox. Using your light to see shapes is really the psychological core of ‘making light real’. Light gives you that power to sculpt and form.

To achieve this exposure with your camera in TTL auto flash as well as Aperture, Shutter Speed, or Program exposure mode. Adjust your main exposure compensation value to -1EV. That’s it - the flash exposure will correct for everything else - easy eh?

Upcoming later, I have a video clip titled the 3 minute portrait, that will show how I’m using the mini softbox. So the question of size must come up at some point….and you have to know the right answer when you’ve found the right question.

Is the 18 inch softbox big enough?

NO - so (moments later) I switched to using the ceiling as my soft-box.

Size is relative to proximity (distance from the subject) and you want to always have a softbox as big as or larger than your subject.

Rate this:

3.2

Exposure , Gear , Photographic Flash , Shoe Flash Technique , Tutorials
Comments(1)

planet neil - tangents » my choice of flash modifiers

Neil May 25th, 2008

planet neil - tangents » my choice of flash modifiers

See why Neil VanNeikerk chooses to block the light coming out of his speed light, and what advantages that gives him in achieving soft light.

The lighting principle he utilizes is:
the larger your light source, the softer your light.

Rate this:

3.2

A Comparative Look At Catch Lights by Robert Mitchell

Neil April 22nd, 2008

Robert Mitchell writes a lovely post at the Canon Digital Photography forums:

Catch lights are often discussed but rarely demonstrated, so I figured I would do some quick demos to illustrate catch lights as well as a few basic concepts of light. This is not a lesson or tutorial so I’ll only mention those concepts but won’t go into detailed explanations.

Here’s the setup. I’m using a 12″ blue ball to simulate the human eye. The background is white seamless and the subject is 4 feet from the background. The single light source was approximately 30 degrees off the camera’s axis and about 20 degrees up. Although 45 degrees is the preferred or common angle it simply can’t be done with an 8 foot ceiling at a distance of 8 feet from the subject. Once I established that 20 degrees was the maximum angle I kept that angle constant and changed the distance from light modifier to subject. Read through the whole post to complete thinking through the image below…

photo softbox Catchlight comparison

Robert Mitchell’s blog has a few more interesting points you might be interested in….

Rate this:

2.5

Photographic Flash , Technical , contrast , learning
Comments(0)

Balancing the Sun with flash - Crosslighting

Neil March 5th, 2008

This last week I was in Texas with my wedding photojournalism friends at Foundation Workshop. I was a mentor to five awesome students in a group led by Greg Gibson, a two time Pulitzer prize winner and also mentored by Jennifer Dominic, also a professional photojournalist expat working in the wedding industry also. Our staff to student ratio at the workshop is nearly 1:1 and so our team assistant was Tina Carter who was a student last year. As the first day, we assigned the students to shoot portraits of each other as an icebreaker and learning exercise, so I got to shoot Tina as part of our team.

Here’s the final image, illustrating Tina’s new business logo and her dramatic pose, read on to get the full details of the creation of this shot in the bright springtime sun. Last time I posted on overpowering the sun, this time we’ll skirt it, and flirt with it.