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 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:
This is a second episode (the first one is here) from the “Water in product and advertisement photography” series. This time we used the same tank and mix of distilled and sparkling water.
The idea was simple: pouring objects into a water and shooting through the water tank, positioning camera strictly horizontal. Because we have used carbonated water, the tank must be 100% clean inside: every little piece of dirt on the glass will attract bubbles build-up.
The camera was perpendicular to the subject, meaning we did not need very deep DOF, aperture was set to F10. It was enough to have full object in a focus while blurring tank walls enough to hide occasional bubbles on it. For the same reason was used 180mm Macro lens: longer focus helped us separate the object from a tank walls.
Water in advertisement photography: the pepper and CO2 water.
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
As promised, here is the tutorial for what I call “underwater” product photography (not sure what the right name for this). We shoot several products, from fruits to a shampoo bottles, and now I am glad to show you the result.
Gold gel, one more light on the background
This is the most enjoyable photo-shot I had for last few month: not only the most technically challenging but the end result is the most eye-catching and outstanding. The idea was to use a water as a ultimate background to emphasize the product: water can be transparent or 100% reflective (well, not a water itself, but the water-to air boundary), the effect called total internal reflection. Long story short: when we see the water surface at relatively sharp angle, it become almost 100% reflective, acting as a mirror. Now, if we’ll disturb the water surface so it will form a waves, some part of the wave will be a mirror-like (due to an angle) , and some will be transparent, allowing light to be transmitted. Continue reading »
Glad to announce that we eventually got time to work on the tutorial for underwater splash product photography shoot. We’ll be doing behind the scene video and a blog post,:with all setup explained, including every little tips and tricks we used to get job done.
Here is the one of the images we did yesterday during the initial setup:
Underwater splash
under water studio photography: fruit splash
Today we’ll work on more sophisticated shoots. The stuff is really exiting to work on, very simple setup and lighting: it is simple, when you know how
I hope to finish everything by the middle of the week. This will be first tutorial from our long time planned “water photography” series, you better subscribe to our RSS feed now:-)
After we have successfully done a boots catalog photography for Refrigiwear, they decided to go with us on the rest of their 2010 catalog. This time we had a uniform 7+ hours photo-shoot with 4 models, about 30-40 outfits and four people (not counting photographer helping in a studio.
It was fun: Four ladies from Refrigiwear was helping Elite models to get dressed on heavy fireproof jackets, Mylène Farmer with her sexy music videos on a TV, humor, laugh and funny model’s faces at the end of each set.
The uniform we were shooting are made for work in a refrigerators and freezers, with temperature down to zero Fahrenheit. I was trying to keep studio cold, but guys still had a tough time wearing them. Modeling light was off for the most of the flashes, helping to minimize a heat in a studio. Several thousand watt-seconds of strobe flash every second or two did not help to stay models cool either:-)
At the and of the day we’ve got over 1100 images for a proofs gallery, I was tired and happy: I love this feeling after tough, but well done job.
Ok, now the studio lighting setup:
I was using excessive amount of strobes, this is what I always like to do: more lights gives me better control over the whole scene.
For example, I prefer to have a shoot-through light instead of only reflector, when possible: it works like a reflector on low power, but easily can go beyond that, when needed.
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 »
Working on our latest assignment, a catalog shoot for Refrigiwear, I decided to show how proper lighting can make a big difference by using one of the boots from the catalog as an example.
The object I’ve selected is a simple to photograph. Really simple.
Why?
Because it has well visible texture, and does not have highly reflective or transparent surfaces. Nothing similar to this, right?
However, having an easy to shoot object does not mean you should not worry about the lighting. It is so easy to do a crappy image just because it looks “nice” as is, with one light source, for example. Believe me, I am not against simple lighting schema, but more lights gives me more control over the look of the subject, just need to narrow them down.
Here I am going to show you how each additional light source will change the look of the boot and explain why I need it.
Let’s start from this well textured boot and only one light in front-top of it (White Lightning BD in my case), see the lighting setup:
August 26th, 2010 | 
