Shooting with One Light Only - Forest Nymph

I like to work with only one light during certain photo shoots, especially on-location and outdoor. Having only one light in such situations (in my case it's usually the SB-900 speedlight from Nikon) gives me lots of freedom in terms of movement from one location to the other and in terms of space. When I shoot with only one speedlight I also use an umbrella (almost 100%) and of course a light-stand. I used exactly that setup for this quick Forest Nymph shoot.

This compact and portable setup is quite small, light-weight and allows me to set it up almost everywhere because it doesn't require much space - a perfect situation for every photographer and that's why I love it. Ohh and one more advantage of using such simple setup is that I can concentrate on the subject and interact better with a person and a client instead of spending too much time on setting up the equipment and worrying too much whether or not everything is set up as it should be - this is something I've learned long time ago from Bert Stephani.

But of course, there are some shoots where I need more light, more light modificators, more equipment, and much more muscles to carry everything around :)

One Minute Portrait with Natural Light

Taking good (portrait) pictures doesn't require expensive equipment. Sometimes, all you need is the knowledge about natural light and how it behaves and it can take just a minute to take a nice portrait picture. That's all what it took me to take this picture - simple yet beautiful (at least to my personal opinion). I took the photograph with the subject standing very close to a window which was also covered with white-neutral cloth. This way I got a double-diffused natural light. It was all that simple! If you would like to learn more about light, how to use it to your benefit to get amazing shots, I highly recommend Bert Stephani's Motivational Light DVD.

Joker is Alive and He Wants to Put Smile on Your Face

I had a great privilege to work recently on an artistic photography portfolio for a French actor. While most portfolio photo shoots for actors are quite standard (front face shots and profile shots), we have decided to do something more artistic and unique. So we came up with so many great ideas during the brainstorm session that we had to narrow down the project to 3 thematic shoots. One of them was the Joker photo shoot and as it turned out, the Joker is still alive and he wants to put a smile on your face.

My make-up artistic did a great job with preparing the actor in less than an hour while I was busy fixing my strobe set-up which just broke minutes before (but I managed, hooray!). It took us a couple of hours to get all the different shots we wanted and it was really worth it. Everyone liked the more gruesome, bloody and horror-like shots more than other photographs. It made me really happy because I was afraid at first that these gruesome photographs were in fact too much over the top.

What helped us a lot is that we had a very specific goal and we planned the shoot from the very beginning till the very end - good planning helps a lot during a photo shoot, believe me. Although I still like to improvise during shoots (I do it quite often and mostly during TFP-like shoot for models), I also appreciate a good pre-defined and detailed plan for a photo shoot. The main lesson learned for me from this photo shoot was to be patient to my photo gear and to myself. I often stress out when a client has to wait for me so I can reposition the light, change this or that. However, I have never experienced having an impatient client and everyone appreciates the results at the end.

Using a window as a light diffuser

I particularly like soft and nicely diffused natural light during most of the photo shoots (unless I decide that hard light is what I need for a particular shoot) and I use windows as light diffusers more and more often.

At every location and photo shoot, I like to firstly look around to see how I can make use of the available light and if there are any natural light-modifiers on the set already (I learned this from Bert Stephani). There can be various 'natural' light modifiers on location, like reflectors (light bouncing from the walls) or light diffusers. The pictures present the effect of the latter type and how a big window as a light diffuser was my best friend in my recent photo shoot.

I noticed a really big window just next to the entrance when shooting at the Malte Restaurant in Brussels (Belgium) recently. Without much thinking I decided to (gently) drop all my light equipment I had with me and to use only the soft natural light from the big window which acted as a huge light diffuser. Unfortunately, you don't see the window on the pictures, but you can clearly see the diffused light and the overall effect.

Believe it or not but I didn't use any additional light sources, reflectors or similar for the shots. I'm particularly happy with the effect that the big window gave me as a light diffuser and it would take quite some time to achieve the same effect and results with artificial light and extra diffusers. That's why I research the environment for natural light and 'natural' light modifiers before shooting on location.

Last but not least, I would like to thank very much the owner of the Malte Restaurant in Brussels for letting us to use their premises for the photo shoot. You should definitely visit the place for the great food and ambient atmosphere, or at least to check out their big window to see how nicely it diffuses the light :)

Combining natural and artificial lights

Until only recently I was either using only natural or only artificial light (speedlight or strobes) in one picture at the same time. However, rules are meant to be broken (yes, it was a very weird rule I had to use only one type of light during a shoot) and lately I've been combining and mixing natural and artificial lights. I really like to use one type of light as a hair light and the second as a fill light or as the main light.

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I particularly like to use natural light as a hair light for several reasons. Firstly, if I use a speedlight as the main light, then I have much more control over the light, its strength, position and I can apply light modifiers onto the speedlight. Secondly, if I have to shoot at noon when the natural light is not too flattering (yes, sometimes I just had to shoot at noon when it's the only option for a model, a make-up artist and a stylist), using the natural light as the hair-light is the best option. Thirdly, having the sun behind the model and sometimes having it in the frame and then compensating the exposure with the speedlight can give some nice and creative results.

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These Jeans Are Made For Wearing

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I love 2 things about blue jeans as a photographer: their color and their texture. Most jeans are in a really nice blue color spectrum and temperature, which is nice to look at and doesn't overpower a subject in an image. Add a nice texture to this pleasant blue color and a good-looking model and you'll have a perfect combination for  a photo shoot (not to mention you'll also need good light but it's a different story).

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I had few photo shoots during my recent stay in (Gdansk) Poland in March and I asked Diana to be my model for a spontaneous photo shoot in the Oliwski Parc in Gdansk. We had a really nice weather, a bit cold but sunny. Although we met at around 2pm when the sunlight was still harsh, there was a lot of shadow from the trees and bushes which I used in order to get nice soft light on her face. I also used the sunlight as a hair-light. To my surprise, Diana had with her a couple of outfits and after about an hour shooting she told me she had a jeans outfit (jeans trousers  and jeans shirt).

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We both like it so much that we decided to do the rest of the photo shoot in the jeans and I think it was a perfect decision. I particularly like how the colors of the jeans (both of the trousers and the shirt) and their texture fit into the bright light and spring feeling of the pictures. What do you think? I think these jeans are made for wearing ... especially in spring :)

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Using a mirror to frame a subject

Until just recently, whenever someone talked about pictures of a person taken in a mirror, I only associated this kind of pictures with Facebook profile pictures of teenagers (I think you know about what kind of picture I talk about). But I have discovered the great advantage of mirrors during my recent photo shoot in Poland - mirrors are great to frame a subject. There are other ways to frame a subject, for example with door frames, windows, trees, etc. but I never used a mirror to frame a subject before.

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Using a mirror to frame a subject can be a bit tricky and difficult when you use strobes and/or speedlights because these additional light sources can create reflections in a mirror and light spots. Therefore, you should be careful when using lights for these kind of shots - a quick tip: first get your model or subject in a right position and take a test pictures to see what is visible in a mirror, then position your lights so that they are not visible in a mirror and are out of the mirror's frame.

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Another thing is that any lines (within mirror's frame or any other lines) can be used to define a picture or a subject. Lines or even patterns can be very helpful in drawing the attention of a viewer to the subject in the picture or separate the subject from the rest of what is in a frame. Next time you'll be taking pictures, take a close look at any patterns or lines either in the foreground or in the background, try to change your position or reposition your subject to use these lines.

Improvising a photo shoot on location

I love working with people, professional or aspiring models, people who want their portraits taken, people who look for specific type of photography for their businesses, commercial or promotional purposes. However, it's not always possible to prepare some of these photo shoots and often it's necessary to improvise... actually you can never be confident that you're 100% prepared for a photo shoot as a photographer. There are almost always unexpected things happening: bad weather, people not showing up or showing up late limiting your time for a shoot, location turning out different than you expected, etc (the list can continue forever).

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You can't be prepared for these unexpected circumstances (quite obviously they're unexpected) and you have to be ready to improvise - being able and ready to improvise during a photo shoot is a must and actually it's the only thing you can be sure of and control before a photo shoot. Just to make it clear: you can't go for a photo shoot completely unprepared thinking that you can improvise everything but you need to be ready to improvise when needed, let your creativity unleash and just 'expect unexpected' as I say.

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I had a photo shoot, during which I had to improvise, a couple of weeks ago in February 2011. I met with Knight Wise and Niejana of KnightWise.com - I refer to both of them as THE Belgian Geeks :). Knight Wise and Niejana are a really awesome couple from Belgium who are not only into technology but also into Starwars, podcasting, videocasting and all the geeky stuff (honestly, I'm not sure what I'm talking here about because I'm not a typical geek... I'm just a photography geek). Anyway, going back to the topic, I met with them in Tongeren (Belgium) (which was also my first time in Tongeren) and I had no idea what to expect - we didn't have a fixed photo shoot location and their house turned out a bit too small for a photo shoot.

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The only option was to improvise, especially when I decided to start off with a photo shoot outside at a countryside. Knight Wise and Niejana took me to a nearby popular park, just outside of a city and I immediately started to look around for interesting places, foregrounds, backgrounds and patterns... anything that would be interesting and supplementary for portrait photography. I don't think I have to mention that I tried to take the pictures of Knight Wise and Niejana around the theme of the 'Belgian Geeks'. They mentioned to me during the photo shoot that they even didn't have their engagement photo shoot before they had the wedding few years ago. So I decided to use this opportunity to shoot few engagement / couple / love pictures. At some point, I just asked them to sit on the ground and I let them interact with each other - it turned out great and I learned one important thing: Geek love is tough love (look at the picture where Niejana hits Knight Wise with a very robust and expensive laptop) :)

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Strobist info for some of the pictures: I used a combination of Nikon's SB-900 Speedlight on a shoot-through umbrella and sometimes I also used a light-reflector for pictures taken outside (but I also tried to use as much natural light as possible, something just modifying it slightly with a light-reflector. For indoor pictures, I used 2 Lastolite Lumen F400 lamps with shoo-through umbrellas as well.

Focus on your subject, not gear

I've recently read a very interesting blog article Less Gear, More Character? by Bert Stephani and I have to credit him for giving me the idea on the following article. I completely agree with Bert's opinion that gear can stand in a way between a photographer and a subject, especially when too much gear is used or the focus of a photographer is on the gear and not on the subject.

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We photographers often get excited with the releases of new equipment, not to mention buying new gear - we are like kids who just got the most awesome and the most awaited Christmas gift - getting excited, sometimes even screaming or jumping up and down (having said that, our wives, girlfriends, husbands and boyfriends should be all given Nobel Peace Prizes for accepting our behavior but that's a completely different story). This enthusiasm can often lead to focusing too much on the equipment  and not enough on the subject during a photo shoot. Don't get me wrong, being able to use the equipment, the tools and the light sources during a photo shoot is important but it is a client, a person and a subject who should we focus on. Gear and equipment are just tools that help us in capturing the subject.

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This topic is much broader and deeper than I actually thought it was when I started writing this article. Another important aspect about focusing on a subject (we are talking all the time about a person) and not gear is the significance of establishing certain relationship with a person, of course on the level photographer-subject/customer. Don't forget that quite often, the photographed person is nervous and doesn't know what to expect from a photo shoot. It is in your best interest to establish and create a friendly atmosphere and make the person feel comfortable. It helps in capturing great portraits or similar type of pictures, which otherwise could come out really bad, especially when the person is nervous, tense and doesn't show his/her true face and behavior.

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Another point is that it's also in your best interest to focus on the subject and see it as a customer, a returning customer in the future as well as a 'live' walking advertisement of your services, who could refer their friends to you. I think it goes without saying that all your efforts should concentrate on making this person welcomed and special during a photo session but if you don't know what I'm saying.... treat him/her like a new lens, a new lighting setup or a new camera :)

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When you focus your attention on the gear and not your subject and customer, then you might create an unfriendly environment, which will not only prohibit you from taking great shots but also might cause you to lose that customer in the future and his/her recommendation of your services. I'm not saying that equipment is not important, it's a tool (just like your camera) that helps you in getting great shots but it's your subject that should be the main focus. It's up to you to find that right balance between the two.

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Pictures: This was my first photo shoot in 2011, where I tried to unleash my creativity. A friend visiting Brussels was very kind to model for me and it was actually her idea to do a bit of a retro photo session. Strobist info: I used one speedlight SB-900 from Nikon in the manual mode triggered with Cactus Wireless Flash Trigger Set V4 mounted to a big shoot through umbrella (110cm/43'').

The Importance of Networking for Photographers

If you have just started your adventure as a professional photographer or you plan to do that, probably the most often and important question you ask yourself is on how to have (new) customers. I won't explain you here on the importance of a good portfolio, an appealing website and using web 2.0 tools (like Facebook or Twitter). However, I would like to point your attention to the importance of networking as a photographer, which some photographers (especially those new professional photographers) tend to forget about. Networking is actually much more important for having customers than anything else. YES! Even your thousands of followers on Twitter and hundreds of 'friends' on Facebook won't give you as much opportunities for new customers as networking and word of mouth.

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Therefore, networking is much more effective for having new customers, especially when we already made happy previous customers with delivering photographs and products in line with their expectations. Satisfied customers who remember you well and have good memories from working with you are much more effective and efficient 'living advertisers' than anything else. They will definitely mention you and their experience on working with you to their friends, families and co-workers. They will even refer anyone looking for a photographer to you if they are happy not only with your final results but also with the way you work, communicate and approach your clients. Therefore, a photographer should also be a good communicator, a friendly and engaging person with excellent customer relations.

The pictures accompanying this blog article were taken when testing new shoot-through umbrellas (110cm) together with Nikon's Speedlight SB-900. The light source was positioned as close to the subject as possible in order to make the light as soft as possible.