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 »
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 rarely shoot on locations, always feel more comfortable working in the studio. In most cases there is a power outlets on location, I had only a few where it was too far from the lights (warehouse freezer, for example). With no external power I’ve used 4 Canon speedlites, but they too weak to be used with serious light modifiers or on a large objects.
It makes me feel very uncomfortable when I do not have enough power:-)
So, I was looking at Vagabond II or similar portable power solutions, but did not find the one I like: it should be powerful enough to run 3-5 strobes equal to X1600 (1600 effective/ 660 true WS) for at least 300 pops and to be not expensive, as I won’t be using the system often, therefore do not want to invest lot of money in it.
DIY portable power battery pack for Paul C. Buff monolights
I’ve done it 2 years ago, while playing with Canon Speedlight strobes: that time we did not have much assignments and I spend time in studio exploring new techniques, a lot of resulting photos found a place in our stock collection. Continue reading »
I was doing a blu-ray backup for our HDD arrays and found several interesting photos, dated between 6 and 9 years ago. I would like to share few of them here.
Quite often I read comments like “what camera should I have to get photos like this, what lighting, etc”. My answer is always the same: stop thinking what you do not have, just get camera and start shooting. Look what can be done with almost no lighting ($30 strobe is what you call lighting?), the cameras was far from modern DSLR too.
I’ll be going from the oldest ones, trying to recall how I did each of them…
2002, film & light brush:
light brush technique photography
This is a composite shoot, captured on a film (Fuji Velvia?) with Canon Elan 7E camera: 2 exposures combined, two different colors on LED flashlight were used to highlight each object. Continue reading »
I was asked many times what camera and/or lens I would recommend to buy in given price range, so I’ve decided to answer this question on my blog, next time I can direct people to this article.
For today this is a longest epic in my life I wrote in English and I really hope you’ll understand what i was trying to tell you:-)
My photography style is clear, crisp, precise and vivid; being a product photographer I can’t (nor I like) produce blurry, out of focus and noisy images and call them “my unique vision”. I do not understand black and white modern photography, see it more like “sorry, can’t get it done with color” thing.
Keep this in mind, as everything I would tell you here is driven by things I value most in my photo gear: Ability to produce sharp, full of details images, and to do it fast and most effortless way. All these special features like scene modes, digital filters, face recognition, email-to-your-grandma senders or whatever manufacturer will include in your camera to attract buyers has absolute NO VALUE to me. If you read my blog, I assume you are interested in photography, therefore the simpler camera you will operate the better you’ll understand photography process. 99% people with entry-level DSLR I know has no idea about most of these fancy features. Think twice, do you really need it? Continue reading »
Our first workshop just happened last Sunday! Hurray!
Atlanta photographer workshop class
Many thanks to all participants, I am sure it was very enjoyable and interesting for all of us:-)
Workshop lasted for 4 hours, during this time we have covered a basic’s of studio gear,shooting techniques, had a master class and an actual photoshoot session for each participant.
At the end we had nice party time:-)
Quote: “The picture was made with the Canon 5D mark II and a 400mm-lens. It consists of 1.665 full format pictures with 21.4 megapixel, which was recorded by a photo-robot in 172 minutes. The converting of 102 GB raw data by a computer with a main memory cache of 48 GB and 16 processors took 94 hours. With a resolution of 297.500 x 87.500 pixel (26 gigapixel) the picture is the largest in the world.”
There are 3 types of photographers by my own classification:
1. Great businessmen who are very successful on selling their work, but I do not understand nor like photography they do. Another words, they know how to sell, but I see nothing which can inspire me.
2. Unknown photographers, they have amazing portfolios, but they are known by very limited numbers of people, so there is not much chances I can find them online. (Know one? Let us know!)
3. Successful photographers who had achieved amazing results in photography and also highly successful on promoting and selling their work. This is who inspires me a lot, I like the clean and crisp style and technically challenged work they do.
Most of them extensively use photo editors to enhance and finish the images, all of them commercial photographers , mostly food , advertisement and fashion. All of them has very bright and professional looking web portfolio.
As I’ve mentioned before, I only selected photographers who work in the same area as myself, there are more great artists around us, but I was learning from these:
Well, I did not have flash meter back 10 years ago, while was shooting on film. But I was not a professional photographer that time, and camera exposure meter plus my prediction along with experience was working well for me.
When I start asking money for my photography, I start feeling that I really need to have a flash meter! Every pro has it, so how could I be a pro without it? Continue reading »
August 26th, 2010 | 
