Photo Art: January 2013

1. Dramatic Lighting

You will notice that in the majority of good portraiture, dramatic lighting is often a key element. It's not too often you'll find 'flat' lighting in a great picture (not to say it can't be done however). It will either result in the lighting that appears directly on the person or dramatic lighting between the subject and the foreground or background. For example, in the images of Bilbo and Thorin Oakenshield, there is dramatic, directional lighting on their faces. There are many ways that dramatic lighting can manifest itself or be achieved.

2. Deep Blacks and Good Highlights

You may also notice in images created by someone who knows how to process their images, they'll have excellent tonal range. The images from The Hobbit capitalize on this. Proper images have some deep blacks and some highlights as well. This is also another way to avoid having your image appear 'flat.' It doesn't necessarily have to be a great deal of each, just so long as you're touching on both ends of the spectrum. Some photographers like to use filters or they have a style of slightly muting everything which minimizes tonal range. This is fine. There are times when the photographer can make a decision not to have a high contrast image. They still produce a great image, however this style is to be intentional and purposeful.

3. Interesting Foregrounds and Backgrounds

Another element that can really enhance an image is including interesting foregrounds or backgrounds. These are two things that always need to be considered one way or the other. It's very easy, especially if you're new to photography, to forget about these and end up with distracting backgrounds or foregrounds. However, do not simply avoid them; they are useful tools to achieve a stronger image. Look at every example image from the movie. Don't the backgrounds give interest, setting, and help tell a story? That's what we're wanting.

4. Find Unique Angles

Don't be afraid to try new angles. It's easy to get stuck in a rut of taking pictures from the same angle or height. Try spicing it up some; you may be shocked. Get high. Get low. Back away. Get close. This can add some variety to your shots and help you find a real keeper.

5. Be Color Smart

Be very aware of how your colors and image temperatures are telling a story. Are your colors too bright and vibrant or too muted? How does this affect the mood? Is the image temperature cold and moody or warm and cheerful? These are things that can be fined-tuned to help narrate your image. If you’re wanting a dramatic image like Gandalf's photo, then a warm temperature would not be desired. Chances are you could put more thought into these details to improve your images. So often we take the picture concerned only with composition, lighting direction, and subject when the color can be considered more thoroughly.

6. Mind the Sky

If shooting outdoors, instead of allowing the sky to be a blown-out nuisance, view it as a resource, and use it to your advantage. Now, this may not always be possible due to equipment, desired effect, or setting. But there are ways that you can properly capture the clouds or the blue of the sky. You could either expose for the sky and light the subject with additional lighting, use HDR, or find a proper exposure with natural light that works for both your subject and the sky. But don't always avoid the sky; learn to tame it. Notice the drama it adds to Gandalf and Bilbo's images.

7. Don't Use Shallow Depth of Field Every Time

Using a very large aperture and creating a shallow depth of field can be a great affect for portraiture and many other types of photography. This doesn't mean, however, that it is the only effective use of DOF. Use a large DOF every so often, especially if your background could amplify the effect of the image. Make the image sharp throughout the entire image. Play around with both and learn in what situations it works best.

David Wahlman is a wedding and portrait photographer from Redding, CA. He works all around California and is aiming to get into destination photography. You can see his best work at www.wahlmanphotography.com and follow his updates on his facebook page.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

7 Elements of Photography We Can Learn From The Hobbit

The Classic White Infinity Backdrop

In my last post about studio photography (the killer clamshell) I covered a simple two light setup for achieving a gorgeous soft beauty look. This time I thought it might be fun to cover something a bit more general purpose and for this there cannot be anything better than the ever classic white infinity setup.

The All Can Do Lighting Setup

There is a reason why pretty much every major fashion or lifestyle magazine makes good use of a white backdrop and that reason is simplicity. Not only is this lighting arrangement incredibly easy to achieve but it also delivers sharp, detailed portraits with a beautifully clean and uniform background and most importantly no visible seams or edges. Aesthetics aside its also great for beginners to try as if done correctly provides a large and consistent zone in which to place your subject, allowing you to concentrate less on the position of your lights and more on placing and posing your model.

Families, pets, models, products the white infinity background is probably one of the most versatile setups going and to help you get started here is my approach to nailing this fantastic lighting arrangement:

Disclaimer

Ok, confession time. The images and steps below are 100% genuine and therefore its going to be pretty obvious that I screwed up my exposure during this shoot. Before you hit the big red 'X' at the top of your browser .. I can explain. I basically had about 10 minutes to set everything up and 30 mins to take the shots before my studio rental was over. Because I was in a rush I failed to spot that a large portion of the floor area was under exposed (by about a stop). I promise I don't do this all the time and if you don't believe me check please feel free to check out the studio section of my portfolio site. Hopefully by showing you my mistakes you will avoid them in the future.

Equipment

This lighting setup requires three lights and is best achieved using studio strobes as opposed to speed lights given the extra power needed to blow out the background. As I have said before, hiring a studio is a cheap and very effective way to get access to this kind of equipment, making this shot all the easier to achieve. If you do decide to do this at home however I would definitely recommend spending a little bit of money on a decent quality background paper, you can use a fabric backdrop but in my experience this will absorb much more light making the exposure more difficult than a non fabric setup. Its also important that you have a background which is long enough to span both the back wall and floor of your shooting space.

For this setup you will need:

Two lights for the background, preferably with some form of diffuser to spread and soften the light.
A main light with as large a diffuser as you can possibly get, an octobox is ideal however any softbox or umbrella will also work.
If possible a light meter is also a great tool for this setup and will help speed up the setup although it isn't essential.

The Lighting Setup

The important thing to achieve is a background that is both evenly exposed and completely blown out (i.e. solid white). The ideal result is to have a background that is twice as bright as your subject, the trick here being the ratio of light as opposed to absolute values.

Typically I will set the exposure for my subject using an aperture of around f8. Therefore if we want to achieve a background which is twice as bright we need to expose the background at an aperture which is one stop smaller than that used for the subject.

Just in case this doesn't make complete sense, changing the aperture by one stop will either halve or double the available light. Therefore if when we meter the background we use an aperture which is one stop smaller than the subject, when we open this back up again to take the final shots the background will now be twice as bright as the subject.

Here is how I go about getting this all set:

Assuming a subject aperture of f8, set your camera to manual and dial in an aperture of f11 and a shutter speed of around 1/125 of a second with your lowest ISO.
Aim the two background lights at the backdrop, positioning them to provide as even a spread of light as possible and either fire the stobes or take a test shot. Take care to only expose the background, try to avoid any of the light spilling forward onto where the subject will be.
If you have a light meter you can now use this to adjust the power of the background lights until you get an even exposure of f11 across the entire backing. If you don't have a light meter set the exposure by taking a test shot of the background, varying the power until the entire backdrop is solid white and evenly exposed. If your camera has it you can use the highlight clipping warning combined with the histogram to double-check your results. Remember to check the floor as well as the background, don't make the same mistake as I did.
Now its time to set the subject exposure, before doing so adjust your camera settings to f8 keeping everything else the same.
Now turn off the background lights and place your subject in position. Again if you have a light meter you can use this to confirm the right flash power to achieve an f8 exposure. If you don't have a light meter set your subject exposure by varying the flash power on your main light until you achieve an exposure that looks right.
Now turn all your lights back on and you are all set.

Two background lights and a main subject light.

The Post Processing

Obviously you can post process your final images however you like but just in case you are looking for a few pointers here is a brief overview of my workflow and more importantly how I overcame my exposure malfunction.

Starting Point - Notice the horrible 'yellow' area of underexposed floor.

Step 1: White Balance & Crop - Basic adjustments to get the colour right and to straighten up the slight slant on the composition.

Step 2 - Minor exposure adjustment (slight exposure and fill light) to get the subject lighting right.

Step 3 - Contrast corrections using via a minor curves adjustment (slight 'S') and added detail via Clarity.

Step 4 - Now its time to fix the badly exposed floor. This was done using a gradient filter from the bottom up to increase the exposure on the area on the floor. Minor imperfections were cloned out using a spot healing brush.

Step 5 - All done, final image completed. Much better than the start as I am sure you will agree. All in all this took less than 2 minutes and would have been much less if I had got the exposure correct from the start.

Summary

The white infinity backdrop is a fantastically versatile and satisfying lighting setup and one which I would definitely recommend to anyone wanting to try something different to a single light arrangement. Hopefully the tips here will help you to have a go at this classic lighting look, unfortunately though finding the super model is down to you!