What is the best and fastest way to learn photography (and not only photography)?
The first way is to watch how the task gets done by a pro and then to try to reproduce something similar yourself.
The second (by efficiency and speed) way is to invent your own way to do the shoot, trying different techniques and gear until the desired result is achieved.
Will you agree or is this only me learning like this?
Lets talk about the first way: when you go to a workshop or masterclass to see how the master does his magic:-)
I attended a workshop only once and hosted just a few of them, but it was enough to see how much people are wasting their valuable time (and money) with a photographer they are trying to learn from.
I am talking about questions we ask. Usually we try to ask questions to increase informational value of the master-class or workshop, right?
I so often hear something like this:
What aperture and/or shutter speed is used for the shot? What is the ratio between the light sources? Etc, etc.
People asking for numbers and drawing lighting diagrams in hope they can use them later. (I’ve seen set of lighting diagrams for sale… what a joke!)
Now tell me this: why to ask about exposure settings, if those are applicable only to that particular shot (or even particular camera angle)? A ratio between the lights? If you see the outcome of each shot, there will be a visible difference between the lights, this will give you an idea where is more powerful light. Why do you need the exact f-stop number, if it only works for that particular shot? Continue reading »
This type of shots is not what I usually do, but when my friends asked if I can do their seniors promo shoot (never heard of such type before:-) my answer was: yes!
I always glad to host any of my good friends in the studio: I can always test new gear or learn some new technique while working with them. This time I eventually got an opportunity to test my DIY battery power pack (aka Vagabond II I’ve assembled recently) in real life situation, as we planed to do several informal shot outside of the studio.
After we were done with formal (most boring for me, not much formality left in my brain part of the shot in a studio, I took 3 Paul. C Buff monolights outside, on our backyard. It was close enough to use an extension cord to power them up, but the idea was to test my DYI Vagabond.
Two WL X1600 units and one AB400 were used. The power settings was close to a maximum: I was shooting at 1/250 sec F8, ISO100. At such exposure ambient light did not play any significant role in that shade under the trees.
The lighting setup for the outside shoot :
on location lighting setup DIY vagabond II alienbees pack
This week I’ve got 2 additions to my studio gear I was waiting for a long time: heavy, solid and huge Fatif studio stand and amazingly fast workstation laptop, Lenovo W700ds. Both of them are really monstrous creatures:
Fatif studio stand:
Old, by still strong as my red pepper Ukrainian vodka I brought 8 years ago and still haven’t tried: about 180 lb heavy, 8 feet tall, it feels like an WWII cannon:-)
Thank for all who participated our first masterclass, I think it was good, especially considering that this is my first time when I was working and talking on public:-)
I can’t say that it was an easy task for me: being born introvert and quite shy guy, I do not feel comfortable talking to more then 5 people at once. Doing a live broadcast, when I do not see immediate reaction on a people faces makes thing even more complicated for me. I was really afraid that I can’t open my mouth when time will come, but one shot of good scotch whiskey 10 minutes prior the broadcast fixed most of my emotional problems:-) And, once I started to talk, it was easier and easier to move forward.
We got about 20 attendants average, and, what most important, the number was increasing during the masterclass: a good sign indicating it was not boring:-) several people joined us after 6 PM: time zone calculation is not the easiest task, I know:-)
I was using various softboxes for most of our product photography, but about a half a year ago I discovered a perfect use of translucent diffuser panels in product photography. I am talking about usually small product with glossy reflective surface with inevitable reflection form the lights on it.
The main difference between softbox and diffuser panel is how the light is spread on the “working” surface: good softbox is suppose to produce even flat light on its front screen while diffuser may have very different pattern, depending on how we highlight it. What does it mean for me when I shoot some glossy, especially dark glossy object? The reflection from that light.
Reflection will be very different: softbox always gives sharp-edged square while diffuser panel can produce very uneven, gradient filling. Gradient is the key: it can be round, square or linear, whatever I need to show on the object.
Below is the example images I’ve got while shooting line of cosmetic brushes for Anisa International. Managed by Anisa Tewlar, company makes high-quality cosmetic brushes and accessories, I am really glad to work with them.
Top-down shot of the black glossy brush, done with two softboxes on each side of the brush:
Yesterday I was buying 10 bottles of HEET (100% methanol) and distilled water for my car (who can guess why? ) at Walmart and accidentally noticed something very familiar while walking near kitchenware shells… It was like: did I shoot these? Yep!
It is still a little unusual feeling to see my own work in such places: it is like browsing incognito your own exhibition:-). I was smiling when shooting them on Droid X (BTW, surprisingly nice 8Mpx camera):
Rival toaster
This is about 10% of what we actually did for Walmart, the rest is still (my guess) in a creative packaging department. Continue reading »
This is what we shot for the catalog cover (the full catalog photo session are here and here), a close-up shot of one of the catalog boots. Customer wanted to show the boot on a cove and wanted to have the most rich, tasty and sexy (here I’ve run out of my English vocabulary :) look possible. They selected that high black rigid boot with their logo on the front to be shown, all on the black background.
Below is one of the images from this photo session:
Last week I had a great opportunity to work on a very interesting project: a food photoshoot for Jante Glen and his Wing City2City Take-Out Restaurant.
Jante has this great idea of very simple and inexpensive Take-Out restaurant with more money spent on the quality of the food instead of workers, the building and silverware. Therefore the photography should be the same: simple, but showing the best of the product for each menu item.
We were lucky to find a great food stylist, Nan McCulloch (www.nanmcculloch.com), she helped us a lot with the whole concept of the shoot, along with the styling for each dish.
I like to shoot products, working quietly in the studio, putting all my skills and creativity to get job done. There are three major types of product shots we are dealing with:
1. Sometimes ugly prototypes, where post-production and retouching may take ten times more efforts than photoshot itself. They are good challenge to work with, and it helps a lot:-)
2. Regular off the shell products, with shape and finish that can be very straight forward to shot or require hours of complicated setup built and very precise lighting to be done right.
3. Designers products, which are very unique and usually very interesting to work with.
In this article I’ll show our recent photoshot with a third, most enjoyable to work type of product.
I am talking about the photo-shot we had recently for Doug James (StudioDoug.com). He brought very interesting and unusual products of his studio to be photographed: LED tabletop lamps along with other cool stuff.
I glad to announce a date for our first LIVE masterclass: Saturday, 7th August at 5PM Eastern time.
We’ll be doing our water photography third tutorial, creating photos similar you see below. The lesson will take about an hour, plus some additional time when I can answer your questions.
Example photo for next masterclass
The registration is completely free and one click simple, HERE. After registration, click on ‘AKELstudio LIVE’ link on top right menu, you’ll see the video preview; check how it works on your browser if you do not want any surprises when we’ll be LIVE.
For all who registered I’ll send a notification with the next photoshoot date/time.
Let me know if you have any suggestions on how to run it most efficient way: we all open for new ideas.
August 26th, 2010 | 
part of the shot in a studio, I took 3 Paul. C Buff monolights outside, on our backyard. It was close enough to use an extension cord to power them up, but the idea was to test my DYI Vagabond.
