A Day in The Field

Early June sometimes finds itself struggling to decide where it wants to go. It seems to know the dog days of summer are but a week or two away, yet somehow probably in defiance of the inevitable, the first week of June seems to always cling to the last remnants of spring. That is the way it was leading up to and then falling on a single June day afternoon recently. For six months we had tried to schedule a location shoot but available time and circumstance prevented us from connecting...that is until that day.

Leading up to our shoot the previous few days rain fell and the tempertures dropped lower than are typical for this time of year around these parts. Then the days turned almost perfect when highs in the mid 70's along with a light breeze. Clouds rolled in and created a covering blanket of soft white, which for a photographer is mostly perfect as the sky then becomes a giant softbox casting gently smooth light. Our day was set and the shoot was on...location was Romanza Johnson Park where Trammel Creek winds its way around the edges.

I showed up a little early to set up the changing tent and the speedlight stands...checked and rechecked the settings and the camera remote; Group A channel 1, Group B channel 1...yes, the power settings changed on queue for each. The softbox was attached to Group A light and Group B was powered down to about 1/32nd power...just enough to provide a subtle highlight. Group A is always my main light, and Group B is usually my main highlighter. Sometimes I'll use up to four lights adding a Group C and D all fired as Channel 1, but this day only two lights proved necessary and as it turned out, they worked exactly the way I planned.

My model was a delightful young lady, Sophie, who arrived shortly there after with her mom. After a quick intro as to what we were wanting to accomplish, we decided to setup along the split rail fence that stretched along the entrance road on the outer edge of the park. Because of the rain, the ground was too muddy elsewhere and the creek was running higher than normal preventing us from using the gravel bar.

The first few shots I made were simply establishing shots to verify exposure and light angles. Turns out a few of those were pretty good shots and became part of the image grouping. As always my desire was to have the model simply be herself, yet add a hint of sassy along with a dash perky. Some models are more difficult to work with, but some, like Sophie, took to it like a pro. I never overdo instructions, choosing to drop hints and suggestions and then let the model fill in the gaps with her own style and personality. Sometimes it is necessary to encourage a bit more animation from them and then offer a range of opportunity for them to give it a try.

I almost always use a long lens as this allows for a wider range of depth of field control plus it reduces any uncomfortable personal space intrutions that might occur using a shorter focal length lens. Some of the most effective shots are done when you simply allow the model to slowly move across a few yards without posing, without becoming too static. A flip of the hair, a subtle look down, a slight tilt of the head, gentle smile...allow the natural light to work the background, but allow the model to become herself without being overly concerned about her actions. Just allow the off camera flash to fill in the rest of the light.

The key...the eyes. They must be clear, bright, and sharp with strong color definition. Always focus on the eyes, not always an easy compositional task when your model is moving toward you. The trick is to take a lot of shots so you will almost always have a few come out the way you want them to.

Most of my shoots last about an hour and half...move out much past two hours and everyone starts getting tired with a noticable drop off in energy.

Every photographer develops their own style and I haved gained a great deal of insight from many of my photographer friends. Some tend to slant toward more of an edgy look, others are very creative and stylish, still others are plain and ordinary. Over time my style has grown into a simple homey look accented with a slight amount of sass and sweetness. Mostly I just let the model be themselves as much as possible and encourage them to loosen up enough to feel comfortable with what we are doing.

All in all this early June outing turned out to be a delightful day in the field...and the results...well, I think they turned out rather well.

B-29 FIFI - A Portrait of a Legend

The B-29 bomber of World War II fame proved itself an iconic airplane both in design and function. It became the most expensive design project during the war exceeding even the development of the Atomic Bomb in cost. Almost 4,000 of them were built and two of them, the Enola Gay and Bocks Car dropped two atomic bombs on Japan ending the war.

When one of the few flying examples of the B-29, FIFI, came to Bowling Green, I had to take advantage of the opportunity to capture this beautiful airplane. What I wanted to do was photograph it at dusk using several speedlights along with some light painting, however, when I inquired about doing such a thing, the crew balked and it fell through. I was left with trying to capture the nostalgic nature of FIFI under less than ideal conditions. As a result, the images I took were made with the intent of creating black and white images. Black and white lends itself well to capturing dramatic skies when the lighting conditions are marginal. Converting to B&W allows one to take advantage of contrast which will offset the negative factors assiciated with middle of the day lighting. Another difficulty were the other people who had come to see the B-29. It was difficult to shoot around them and in some cases it became necessary to clone them out of the image in post processing, not always an easy task.

Fortunately, in spite of the tough conditions, the sky cooperated and I was presented with a blend of whispy clouds and blue skies, both of which contributed to exciting black and white conversions.

The idea behind the images was to recreate that 1940's look. The conversion process included using Nik software Silver Effects which allows for various black and white effects including simulating the use of different kinds of black and white papers. This advantage creates exciting possibilities. Most of the images that were converted used the Ilford Delta 100 Pro paper simulation. I also applied a sepia tone effect on a few of the images, along with high contrast and high structure giving the images a powerful, crisp look.

Capturing a portrait of a legend like the B-29 transported me if only for a few moments back in time to another era when because of the circumstances of the time, great planes were created which were destined to become some of the most beautifully functional machines ever created.

How The Picture Was Made - Blending Two Zones of Light

Photography requires as much post processing as it does time in the field. In fact, almost all digital images require some post processing to bring out the extra pop we all desire in our photos. Fortunately, there are a few easy to learn techniques that help us in creating a finished photograph. One of these is knowing how to blend two Zones of light.

First let's go back a step or two. Blending two zones of light starts in the camera and is accomplished by taking at least two separate images of the same subject, one using the ambient light and one using a speedlight(s), then blending them in photoshop as a single photograph. The reason we do this is because when using speedlights, it sometimes becomes necessary for the lightstand to be in the shot in order to get the best angle to light the subject. When that happens we need an easy way to remove the lightstand without having to perform a lot of cloning magic which can at times get cumbersome. It is also necessary because the ambient light is almost always darker than the light from the flash and we must allow for the 'Burning In' of that background light before the flash fires to illuminate our main subject.

Let's look at the portrait of a 1976 Corvette I recently made. The situation was like this. The background was the National Corvette Museum and I wanted to take the photo during that narrow window between dusk and dark. Doing so would allow for the capture of the dynamic lighting on the museum's Skydome and also allow for some of the dusky light in the sky to be captured. This however prevented me from capturing the Corvette with a correct exposure using just the available light. To accomplish that feat required the use of multiple speedlights positioned strategically around the Corvette to illuminate it.

The two zones of light then were; The background ambient light coming from the sky and the museum, and the speedlights used to expose the car. In order to have an effective light on the car required that two of the speedlights, one with a softbox attached, be in the shot. A first baseline photo was made without the lights in place and was done simply to get the ambient light exposure where I wanted it. The second shot then was setup with the lights in place to capture the car.

The first two images then shows the ambient light photo without the speedlights in the picture. It was opened as a RAW image and tweaked to obtain the desired results for the background light, then saved and opened inside the Photoshop Elements work window. The Tweak settings were noted for later use.

There were some powerlines showing in the sky in the upper left of the image so they were removed using the Healing tool. Then the second image taken using the lights was opened also as a RAW image.

Notice the softbox showing in the upper right of the image and also not as noticeable the speedlight sitting on the other side of the car firing into the window. The same RAW settings were applied so the second image would closely match the background settings of the previous image. Notice the Powerlines are also visable in the second image, but they were left alone.

Next I used the Select All option under the Select dropdown box then selected Copy under the EDIT dropdown. I then reopened the first image and used the PASTE option to overlay the second image exactly on top of the first one. This created a Layer Mask that could then be used to erase anything showing on the top layer to expose what was beneath it. In this case I simply seleted the Erase tool and expanded the brush to a medium size and erased the sky area, the softbox, and the speedlight shooting into the car.

With a little more applied tweaking of the brightness, contrast, color, and the removal of some stray artifacts to clean up the final image...the results!