Compositional Balance

This image was taken Sunday morning in downtown Vancouver.  I was a beautiful sunny morning, well before the crowds had started to come out.  Compositionally, I wanted to balance the green of the young mans shirt with the green of the sign in the background.  The sign was not in direct sunlight, bit was none the less significantly brighter than the subject.  Had I taken the shot with the existing light, the sigh would have been burnt out and the value of the color would of been lost. Instead, I chose to slightly underexpose my background by dialing up my shutter speed..  I lite the subject with a Canon 580 EX speedlight in a 32" umbrella.  A white reflector was used to fill in the shadow side.  The image that came out of the camera is what you see here.



Camera Clubs

Looking for a fun way to improve your photography.  Check out your local camera club.  I recently joined the North Shore Photographic Society here in North Vancouver and am enjoying my experience very much.

One of the challenges to improving your photography is knowing if what you are doing is working.  Asking friends and family their opinion on you images is a start but very often they won't tell you the whole truth.  They are your friends after all, and they don't want to hurt your feelings.  It is also likely that they are not artists or photographers, so they are unsure what to tell you.

A camera club is a group of like minded people who want to practice and share their photography.  As such, they are a great source of subjective feedback - especially the folks who have been there for a while. Clubs will have monthly slide and print critiques, making feedback is a huge component of what they do.

Another fun aspect of a camera club is that they arrange field trips and guest speakers to come in and share their knowledge or special technique.  So, you get a chance to photograph things that you may not otherwise get a chance to photograph and hear about different ideas, all on a regular basis.

Camera clubs can not replace professional photography organizations, and I will always recommend that you belong to them.  Nor will they replace professional print competitions. But I do recommend them non the less.

Photolen

Portraits in Bright Sunlight

Well my Commercial Portrait Photography course at Focal Point is well under way. The one problem I have though is that the course runs in the evenings, making it difficult to demonstrate many of the techniques I want to show the students. Solution - field trip.

This past Sunday we went out during the day to make some portraits.  It was a bright sunny day with harsh lighting.  Perfect, at least for what I wanted to show them.  Most times we do not have a choice as to the time of the day we have to shoot or the lighting conditions that we work in.  A large part of the course is about learning to manage and control all types of light to get the image we want. Bright sunny days are one of the most difficult situations to work with requiring an implicit understanding of your gear as well as the nature of light.

The first situation we set up was in the middle of a field.  The sun is harsh and direct.  For folks like me who are "follicular-ly challenged", one of the most important pieces of gear to have is a hat.  I had misplaced mine and was starting to feel the sun on my scalp within minutes of being there. Today is Tuesday, I still feel the sun.

When creating a portrait, this type of lighting is considered to be the worst. Sunburn aside, the lighting on the face is harsh and unflattering, but, we were able to work through two techniques that got us reasonable portrait images.

For both techniques, the first thing we did was place the subject between the camera and the sun. This did three things

1. It got the harsh light off the subjects face and created separation by back lighting the subject.
2. It created very flat lighting on the subjects face
3. Created lens flare in our camera

Perfect, now we just need to light the subjects face so we get a nice wrap around lighting.

Our first technique was to use a combination of scrims, reflectors, and gobo's. First we set up a white reflector to use a key light on our subject.  The reflector was large enough to create a soft light source giving us the gentle shadow edge transfer that we like.  The shadow side of the face was still very light so do darken it down we used a black gobo.  We had the look we wanted on the face but the back light from the sun was burning out the hair and shoulders.  A white scrim between the sun and the subject solved this problem.

Our second technique was to use a flash.  The downside to using a flash in this situation is that you need one powerful enough to overpower the sun.  The advantage is that you can control the exposure of your background relative to your subject by changing the shutter.  In terms of flash placement, it needs to be off camera in order to get that wrap around look. In bright sunlight, shutter speeds will be high, so will need to place your flash on high speed sync.  David Ziser on his blog, Digital Pro Talk, has some fantastic examples and explanations for this technique that you can check out here.

Open shade is often a more desirable place to take portraits and will be the topic of my next blog.

Focal Point Course Begins

Last thursday was the opening night for my Focal Point class. We have a great bunch of talented photographers in the class so it's going to be a great one for everybody involved.

The first night is always about finding out where eveyone is at (photographically speaking) and finding a common point to jump in at.  I always try insure that everyone gets the most out of every class, so doing this review gets everyone to the same place and helps to refine the materials for each class.  If you are interested in joining my Focal Point class, I could still fit you in. Log on to http://www.focalpoint.bc.ca/ for all the info.  Next week we are going to start exploring light. It's a real eye opener.

Don't forget that I am also running a flash workshop on May 7th in the Ann MacDonald Hall at the North Vancouver Presentation House.  Contact me directly at 604-307-4566 to sign up for this program.  It will be a great opportunity to learn pro techniques with hand held flashes.

5 tips to improve on camera flash

Coming up on May 7th, I will be giving a workshop on flash photography.  Here is a primer for the workshop.

5 tips to improve on camera flash

1. Avoid pointing the flash directly at your subject. This creates a very harsh, unattractive light. Try using a diffuser like the ones made by Gary Fong. 
2. Bouncing the flash off the ceiling is an effective way of improving the light quality.  The idea behind this is that ceiling are usually white so there won't be any colour shift issues and it will increase the size of the light significantly, giving it a softer look.  The problem here is that the light is top down and will create unflattering shadows in the eyes. Putting a white card on the flash to reflect some of the light into the eyes will help.
3. To get a wrap around feel to the light, try bouncing it of the wall.  This will give it a wrap around look and be very soft.  Downside here is that the light will take on the colour of the wall. Make sure to do a custom white balance - but you should be doing this for every lighting situation.
4. If the wall or the ceiling are just too far away to bounce from, use some sort of reflector.  If you have a reflector in your kit, awesome.  If you don't, try bouncing off a person wearing a white shirt or find a towel, table cloth, sheet, or anything that will reflect a neutral light colour.
5. Flash exposure, within the limits of the camera sync speed, are not affected by shutter speed. Adjust the shutter speed, leaving the aperture set for flash exposure, to balance the ambient light with the flash to gain a more balanced looking image.

These tips and many more will be discussed and practices at length at the flash workshop on May 7th.  To reserve you spot at the workshop, please call Len at 604-307-4566. See you there.

Medicine Hat to Nelson then home

We had a really nice stop over in Medicine hat and were well rested for the long drive in front of us.  We were hoping to meet up with my wife, Shauna, who was in Nelson giving a seminar.  To do that, we were looking at about a nine hour driving day.  Not too bad if the weather held out.

Spring was coming earlier to the  western provinces than it was to the eastern provinces.  We left Muncton in several feet of snow, holed up in Winnipeg because of a snow storm, and practically skated to Regina. After Medicine Hat the snow became scarce, replaced with flooding.  In the eastern provinces, the threat of flooding once the snow starts to melt is high.  Essential services such as hospitals are making plans as to how to handle things if and when this occurs. In Vancouver all we have to worry about is a potential radiation cloud.

The drive proved to be very pleasant. A little overcast but no percipitation and the roads, with the execption of the occasional flooded spot, were bare and dry.  I was struck by how the mountains just rose up from the praries.  Your driving along this flat, flat road for a few days and then all of a sudden, their they are. Huge and snow covered.  Ok, we had been through lots snow and ice up to this point, but now we have some mountains thrown in. The truck downshifted as we started to climb into the pass.

Within 15 minutes we were deep in snow country again.  The snow at the side of the road was often higher than the van (which is 6ft 6in high).  In another 10 minutes, it started to snow.  We got through it without incident.  As we descended down the moutain into Nelson the snow stopped coming down and the snow on the ground return to normal levels. We got to the hotel in Nelson and met up with Shauna.  A really nice dinner, a good nights sleep and it was off to Vancouver.

We arrived home at 6:15pm.  Our epic journey complete.

Winnipeg to Regina to Medicine Hat

The stop over in Winnipeg gave us an opportunity to visit with relatives. It was unexpected, unplanned, and lots of fun. It's always great to catch up with folks that are very close to you but you never are able to spend time with them. We also got a solid workout  in at the Winter Club and attended a guitar/recording workshop lead by Murry Pulver, a studio guitarist who had just returned to Winnipeg after working in Doc Walker and touring with the Crash Test Dummies. All in all, a great stop over.

The storm passed through Winnipeg and the highway opened on Sunday morning so we decided it was time to hit the road - in spite of the warning of slippery roads. Just outside of Winnipeg we stopped for gas. We where the only ones filling up a automobile, everyone else was filling up a snow mobile. This should have been a warning. Stay another day. But with a full tank of gas we headed out for the open road.

The drive started out fine.  The roads were clearish and traction as not a problem.  The sky was blue and the forecast showed no signs of further precipitation.  We drove for a while - until I saw a great opportunity for an image.  We pulled down a side road and parked at the edge of the road.  Unfortunately, the edged of the road was a ditch filled with snow and our right front tire slipped in.  We dug and we pulled and we pulled and we dug but could not move the truck.  Next thing we know a red 4x4 pulls up and hooks on to the back of the truck with a special towing strap.  Another vehicle pulls up and 2 more folks jump out and start pushing.  In no time theses friendly prairie folks have us out of the ditch and we are ready to be on are way, but first, I have to take that shot.  I grab my trusty Canon, loaded with a 75-200mm lens, and head towards the shot.  Stepping in the ditch filled with snow I find myself up to my knees in snow - and sinking.  I don't care anymore. I'm going to get my shot, and get it I did.

With the shot in the can we pointed the van west and were on our way. What a beautiful day.  The sun was shinning, the roads were clear and the winds were blowing lightly, at first.  It wasn't long before the wind picked up and started really blowing.  We found out later this is considered to be one of the most dangerous stretches of road in Canada.  With miles of flat land on either side of the highway the wind is able to blow at very high speeds making the steering of vehicles tricky.  It also makes the already cold temperature much much colder.  The the wind blows the snow across the highway creating a sheet of ice underneath it and turns the road into a skating rink.  No wonder the guys at the gas station looked at us like we were, well, from Vancouver.  This part of the ride was total white knuckle. The van slipped from time to time as we crossed the ice patches. We passed 4 cars that had left the road and one 18 wheeler that had done a 180 degree spin on the ice.  We made it through without incident thanks to Joel's driving skills. We got to our hotel room later than planned but in on piece. Played guitars for a while then went to sleep.

The next morning it was off to Medicine Hat.  A short driving day - that's all we had the energy for.  The wind had died down and the drive was easy.  We checked into a hotel called the Medicine Hat Lodge.  What a great find out there in the middle of the prairies.  Nice room with a balcony overlooking the indoor pool, hot tube and water slide. Two restaurants, shops and a casino.  It was a good night that left us ready for the long drive to Nelson BC. the next day.