with Ed Verosky
There are many ways to achieve a high key look and in this tutorial we’re going to cover one of my favorites: the high-key, ethereal look. Getting this look can be a piece of cake if you keep the basic lighting concept in mind and follow just a few simple tips. Even with minimal gear, [...]
Flash photography is one of the most popular topics we cover here in the blog. Using standard system flash units on-, or off-camera is something everyone seems to be interested in. The reason is that with a little understanding, it’s pretty easy to get professional-level results with the kind of flash units that were designed [...]
A quick explanation of how I setup up off-camera flash. This is the same setup I describe in detail in the blog and my eBooks. Using a light stand, umbrella adapter, and a hotshoe-to-PocketWizard adapter cable, I place the flash unit off-camera and into a shoot-through umbrella.
Of the many requests and suggestions that came in recently, one of the most frequent was for the “How I Shot It” series. So, with that in mind, I decided to talk about this shot of Tatiana. Let’s talk about the lighting. My idea was to create a sense of environment for this portrait. The [...]
There’s no doubt that light modifiers are extremely useful for controlling the look and behavior of flash. Manufacturers are constantly coming up with new ways to snoot, spot, diffuse, bounce, color, and ring-light a basic flash unit. It’s gotten to the point where you rarely see anyone use a speedlite (or speedlight) these days [...]
I went digging through the archives and found this photo of Carrie, complete with post-processing. In my new book, Taking Your Portraiture to the Next Level II, I talk about how post-processing is “part of the art” and it always has been. In digital photography, there is no such thing, technically speaking, as no post-processing. [...]
Newsletter reader, Derek Johnson, sent me a nice email the other day which included a question about a couple of images in one of the articles where I wrote, I love the gray seamless because I can get huge color jumps off it with the smallest color tweaks in Lightroom or Photoshop. Notice in the [...]
One of the chapters in my new eBook, Taking Your Portraiture to the Next Level II, is about how to approach self-assignments. Self-assigned art projects are a great way to get yourself out of a creative rut and stretch your imagination. If all you’ve been shooting lately are senior portrait sessions or weddings, it might [...]
The look of the old Pictorial photographs from Stieglitz and Gertrude Käsebier and some of the old Hollywood glamour portraits from George Hurrell were the inspiration for the two images below. Actress, Dina Massery dropped by so we could do some creative work together, and we decided to head out to the craft shop nearby [...]
This combines a silhouette and translucent screen shot. It’s interesting because the model is not only backlit, but partially illuminated from the front, via the bounce back lighting off the material between the her and the camera. This gives us an unusual combination of detail in some areas, and “floating” silhouette in others. I hung [...]
