Category: Photography

How to Take the Pain Out and Put Personality Into Assembly-Line Photos
Assembly-line photos are a whirlwind of craziness and fun. These can include school dance photos, team sports, drill team, preschool, business headshots, and anything else that involves a whole lot of people that you have to photograph the same way in a short period of time.

These sessions can be a nightmare if you aren’t prepared, and can be boring if you aren’t creative. I’m going to share some of my secrets for making these sessions some of your favorites and delivering photos that will please moms, coaches, teachers, and kids alike.

1. Make a List

Before the day of your big assembly-line session, write out a list of exactly what you need to capture that day. Do not deviate from this list, especially if you have a large group. If you are working with teens especially, you’ll get requests for “just one more” picture, or requests to see what they look like in their photo. You might get requests to take photos not on your list, like best friends, or for a clothing change. If you want to keep your sanity, you have to smile, express how sorry you are, but give them a firm, “No”.

My lists might look something like the following. You can use this list as a starting point, and adapt it to your needs.

PRESCHOOL FALL
- Close-up face, horizontal
- Reading a book, vertical
- Holding an apple, vertical
- Entire class – with teachers and without
PRESCHOOL SPRING
- Close-up face, horizontal
- Name o a chalkboard, vertical
- Graduation gown, vertical
- Entire class with teachers and without
PROM
- Individual couples; up close, full length, something fun (they choose)
- Group photos; smiles, serious, silly
- All girls together, all boys together
SWIM TEAM
- An individual photo in team jacket on the “blocks”
- Entire team smiling, hugging, serious, silly
- Each class (seniors, juniors, etc.) smiling, silly
- All girls together, all boys together
- Coaches together and individually
- Individual fun photo (off the diving board, in pool, they choose ONE)
DRILL TEAM
- Individual horizontal, vertical, and something fun (they choose)
- Shots of “big sister” and “little sister” together
- Entire team smiling, hugging, “model pose” with coaches and without
- Each class (seniors, juniors, etc.) smiling, one more their choice
2. Stay Professional and Organized

Let everyone know right at the beginning how things will go, and keep everyone moving through quickly. It’s always good to have an assistant helping you line everyone up, and get the next in line prepared before they get in front of your camera. I usually use one of the coaches or teachers to help guide their kids, but you could bring a friend along too.

Things can become chaotic quickly, especially with kids and teens. Be firm, decisive, and even a little bit loud if necessary. Let everyone know what is coming up next, and have them line up and wait for their turn so you aren’t trying to gather people every time you need to do the next photo.

If there’s something they need to decide (like what their class “silly” pose will be) warn them ahead of time, so they have time to prepare and think of something before it’s their turn.

3. Give them a Chance to Show their Personality

Whether I am photographing the entire class, a team, a group together, or photographing each individual, I like to give them a chance to show a little bit of who they are.

If it’s a younger group, like preschool, the teacher and I collaborate to have something fun for at least one of the photos. We’ve done holding apples, writing their name on a chalkboard, graduation caps and gowns, reading a cute children’s book, sitting on a stack of books, etc.

For organized team photos, I let them know that after we do all of the basic photos, I will let them each do one fun photo. For example, for the swim team, I give them two location options, either jumping off the diving board or in the water at the end of the pool.

Everyone who wants the diving board option lines up there, and everyone who wants in the pool lines up at that location. I don’t let them do both because if you start that, they all want to do both, and there’s just no time for it. Once they are at their location I let them do whatever they’d like to do, but they only have one chance, and only a few seconds to set it up.

When school dance couples start to arrive, I let them know that they will be doing one “fun” pose together, and to start thinking of what to do. Many of them are “regulars”, and know that’s what I’ll be doing, so they come ready with ideas. If they can’t think of something, I give them a few ideas. They might go back-to-back, or make serious faces. Maybe one wants to pick the other one up. They could dance together, or make silly faces.

When I do the group silly pose, I don’t give them time to plan. There are too many kids, and they’d be there all day trying to agree on something. Instead, I take the regular smiling photo first, then a serious face photo, then I say, okay, on the count of three, something crazy! Then, I count to three as they hurry and do their thing, and then I snap about 10 photos or so and choose the best one later.

4. Relax and Have Fun

It’s easy to forget to breathe, let alone remember to have fun when you are photographing 60 kids at the same time. However, it’s important that you don’t get too robotic with your assembly-line photos. If you can have a little bit of fun interaction with each person, you’ll get much better photos.

Help them relax, and you’ll get some genuine smiles that will be much better than those old school photos we used to get, where half of the time you were mid-blink, looking away, or not smiling. Assembly-line photos are a great way to get to know a whole bunch of wonderful people at once. Smile at them, and forget about the cheese.

The post How to Take the Pain Out and Put Personality Into Assembly-Line Photos by Melinda Smith appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School
December 4, 2017
Review of the Lensbaby Velvet 85

Lensbaby has been producing lenses that create interesting effects since 2004. During that time people have been experimenting and trying out different ways of using them. In the spring of 2015, they introduced the Velvet 56 to the joy of many photographers, especially those doing macro. This year, their newest lens in the line-up was released, the Lensbaby Velvet 85.

The Lensbaby Velvet 85

The Velvet 85 promises to be a great lens for portraiture creating impressionist-like portraits of people. It does indeed do that, but you can use it for so much more. It is a great lens for photographers who like images with mood and which concentrate more on the subject with a lot of bokeh.

First Impressions

The lens is very well made and when you hold it in your hand you can feel the coolness of the metal it is made from. It is not an overly heavy lens, but it’s also not light. It is bigger than the Velvet 56, which is to be expected, though not a lot heavier. They are both very well made, high-quality lenses.

Using the Lensbaby Velvet 85

Like most lenses that are available on the market today, the Velvet 85 can be used for many different types of photography. I use it mainly for macro photography and find it really good. However, you can also use it for portraiture, city photography, and landscapes. It doesn’t work the same as other lenses as you get a really soft-focus effect with it, but for most people, that is exactly why they buy it.

A macro image that was taken with the Lensbaby Velvet 85.

Manual Lens

The lens is completely manual and you cannot use your camera to control it, as you can with other lenses. You need to change the aperture and focus it yourself. You will not be able to see what aperture you used when you download the images to your computer either.

Manual Focus

Focusing is also manual and you need to adjust it as you take your photos. It does turn a long way and you have to twist the focusing ring a lot. Some cameras can tell you when the image is in focus, for example, Nikon does. When you are at that spot of good clarification, then the round dot in the viewfinder appears. However, as you get used to the lens you will need to rely on that less.

Opening up the aperture gives you images with a lot of soft-focus.

For macro photography, most people tend to use manual focus anyway and it is easier with this lens. You can focus where you want and then move yourself and the camera to a spot where the image will be in focus.

For landscape photography, you can set it to infinity and you should get images that are sharp, depending on your aperture. For objects in between macro and infinity, you will have to practice and see it goes. That is probably the area I found the hardest, though as I did it more, it became easier.

Controlling the Lens

With many lenses now you can change the aperture with the camera, however, the Velvet 85 is more like a vintage lens from older style cameras. It does not communicate with your camera and you need to control the aperture yourself. To change it there is an aperture ring on the lens which you turn to adjust it to the setting you want.

Aperture

Unlike other sorts of dedicated macro lenses, the Velvet 85 doesn’t use aperture in the same way. You can take photos of flowers at f/2.8 and get a fairly decent image. If you tried doing that with, say a Nikon macro lens, you will find the photo would almost be an abstract version of the flower with very little in focus.

The aperture starts at f/1.8 on the Velvet 85 and goes up to f/16. At the latter, you will get the greatest depth of field and if using the lens for landscape photography it is a good one to choose. If you are taking macro images of flowers then the wider end is much better.

Using a smaller aperture such as f/11 gives less soft-focus and you get more of a natural looking image.

One thing the lens is really good for is the soft-focus effect that is possible. You can control how much of it you want by using different apertures. The wider it is the more of the effect appears, and the opposite happens as you close it down.

Interesting effects

If you like to get different effects with your lens then the Velvet 85 will be fantastic for you. You can get interesting results for portraits, though I don’t do them if you go to the Lensbaby website you can see some good examples. If you want to give your clients images that are not the same as what others are doing then you should consider adding this lens to your kit. Click here for images.

Bokeh Effect

Without a doubt one of the most special and addictive aspects of the Velvet lenses, and perhaps more so with the 85, is the blurring you can do with it. You won’t find any other lenses available that will give you the same effects. You can play around with the aperture to change how much blur you achieve in your images.

Creating a bokeh effect with a poppy flower and bee.

Whether you are photographing a landscape or a macro image you can use the aperture and blurring effect to highlight your subject. The Velvet 85 is fantastic for this. You can change the aperture to different widths and that will determine how much blur you will get. From that, you can decide what level of blurring you want in your image.

Tilt-Shift Effect

This was a popular effect a few years ago, though, there is no reason it can’t be again. This is where you use blurring effects to make objects in your image look like they are miniature or toy-like. By controlling the aperture and giving the images a lot more of the blur you can get images that look as though your subject is miniature. The lens does not do it all, but it gives you a good starting point.

The soft-focus is a good start to creating tilt-shift images.

Moody Images

Using blurring effects is a great tool for giving your images a moody feel. You can apply it to most types of photography and get those sorts of images that people love. You can use it for most types of photography, try it out if you can.

Playing with the aperture you can create a mood in your image.

Comparing the Velvet 85 with the Velvet 56

There is an obvious difference between the size of the two lenses, which you can see in the image below. However, you will find the same with most fixed or prime lenses.

The Lensbaby Velvet 85 next to the Velvet 56.

If you change the focus to point so that you can get as close as you can to what you are photographing, they both seem to capture the same image.

How close you can get with each lens, the Velvet 85 on the left and the Velvet 56 on the right.

However, if you are trying to photograph something from a fixed point, then the Velvet 85 will allow you to get closer images. This is great if you are taking photos in a location like a garden, you can photograph those flowers that are at the back and harder to get to.

Standing in the same place, the difference can be seen with the Velvet 85 on the left, and the Velvet 56 on the right.

If I had to choose between the two lenses, I think I would want the Velvet 85. The longer reach is appealing, and the soft-focus effect is really interesting. There isn’t a great deal of difference in the price, so it would be my choice.

Adding the lens to your kit

It is not an overly expensive lens, Lensbaby sells the Velvet 85 for $ 499. It is available for most cameras on the market today. You can get a full list on the website.

If you are looking for a lens that is capable of macro photography, then this is a good alternative to the more expensive macro lenses that many companies make. It would also suit a portrait photographer, however, don’t forget street photography and landscape. It is a versatile lens which you will enjoy, but don’t expect to get the same results that you’d achieve with normal lenses.

The post Review of the Lensbaby Velvet 85 by Leanne Cole appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

December 4, 2017
How to Avoid Being Overwhelmed When Learning Photography

Likely, you are working hard to improve your photography. You are trying to master all the settings on your camera, trying to control things like depth of field while trying to improve your focus and the sharpness of your photos. And then there are all those rules of composition to think about as well. That is a lot to remember, and it can be overwhelming. Frankly, it is enough to make you nostalgic for the good old days when you put your camera in Auto mode and fired off snapshots.

Before you revert to that, however, let’s take a look at a few ways you can avoid that feeling of overwhelm, and continue to grow as a photographer.

#1 – Use Swing Keys

First, you can take a page from other areas of life that subject people to being overwhelmed. Perhaps no activity involves a feeling of overwhelm for the beginner more so than golf. When you are learning a golf swing, it is not uncommon for there to be 12 to 15 different thoughts going through your mind. If you try to do them all at once, the result is inevitably a disaster.

Therefore it is common to hear golfers talk about “swing keys.” This is about limiting your thoughts to one thing that you want to do in that particular swing. The physical nature of the swing key will vary from golfer to golfer. For one it might be to keep the wrist straight, for another, it might be to follow through. It just depends on their swing and weaknesses. It just gives the golfer something to think about to improve their swings and also keeps them from being overwhelmed.

Works for photography as well

I find this a useful analogy for photographers as well. When you are out in the field getting ready to shoot, you may have a thousand different thoughts going through your head. You might be worried about the overall exposure level, setting the right depth of field, avoiding digital noise, watching the focus point, keeping the picture sharp, placing the subject in the right part of the frame, creating an interesting foreground, looking for leading lines, trying to create some emotion, and so on. All this can lead to overload. Having one or two swing keys in your mind can help add some clarity.

Personally, I am always thinking about the foreground. Doing so helps me keep my thoughts together. It also specifically addresses issues of focus, depth of field, subject, and overall composition. For you, it might be something different. It doesn’t matter what it is – and it can evolve over time – just try to simplify things. Remember that often the best photos are the simplest. Further, as we’ll see in a moment, you can add more things later.

Create a Checklist

Another way to keep from worrying about all the things you want to accomplish is to create a checklist. When I was starting out, I found that I would get home from a shoot and kick myself for all the things I forgot to do. I would look at a series of shots I took and wonder why I didn’t bracket some of them, or zoom in on something, or add a neutral density filter in a certain spot, and so on.

Having a checklist will keep you from forgetting these things. At the same time, it will allow you to relax and not worry about missing anything when you are in the field. The checklist can be as simple or elaborate as you want. It can be a folded up sheet of paper or a laminated page – it doesn’t matter. Once you have gotten the shots you want, just consult your checklist and make sure you didn’t overlook anything.

Having a checklist can remind you to do things like adding a shot using a neutral density filter.

Use a Building Process

Another way to keep from being overwhelmed is to avoid attempting to do too much at once. Instead, use a building process to create your pictures step-by-step. You’ll be amazed at how simple photography can be when you use this process.

What do I mean by that? Let’s start with an example of a dramatically lit portrait. Trying to create the whole thing in one shot could result in failure and frustration. Therefore, break the final picture down into steps. You might start with a few shots that get the background lighting correct. Once you have that right, then add your flash or strobe, but even then don’t try to control or shape the light yet. Spend a few shots getting the quantity of light the way you want it, and only then move the light off to the side and start working on shape and directions.

In this way, you’ll find that what seems overwhelming at first, actually becomes pretty simple. I have been to enough photography workshops and seminars to confidently state that many masters of photography work this way.

In night sky photos, I find it works best to start by just getting the sky right and then worrying about the foreground elements later.

Build a landscape the same way

It works in other contexts as well. A landscaper photographer might find a great background and work on setting that part of their shot up before they start looking for a foreground. Once they have built that part of the picture they might look for additional aspects to use as a subject or center of interest. After that, they might wait for something to happen to add interest to the picture. As a result, the final picture looks very complicated, but it was built step-by-step.

In fact, the famous street photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson worked this way. You may know him as the master of the “decisive moment,” but he was always building to that moment. He would find a great spot to use as a background, set everything up, and then wait for something to happen. That way when the decisive moment happened he was ready for it and created an overall wonderful picture. It didn’t just come together in an instant as it might otherwise appear.

The point of all this is to show you that if you start simple, you can avoid being overwhelmed. Once you have established one building block of your picture, add another one. This will not only improve your pictures but will result in you having more fun – and certainly fewer feelings of being overwhelmed – while you are doing it.

This started as a simple shot of a barn. We added lights as we went. The white streamers were ultimately lit by a person with a flashlight.

Take Advantage of Digital Technology

Finally, as you take your photos, keep one thing in your mind. Remember the magic of digital photography is that you get to take as many exposures as you want and it costs nothing. There should not be any pressure!

Not only that, but you are getting instant feedback on what you just did via your LCD screen. You can just delete the bad ones (and we all have bad ones) and move on. No one is going to look at your SD card and judge you on the pictures that don’t work out. They’ll only see the ones you show them.

Similarly, don’t worry about any sort of “hit rate.” Frankly, if you end up with a high hit rate, that probably just means you need to take additional pictures and experiment more.

A Never Ending Quest

Done correctly, photography always involves learning and experimentation. Therefore, while I have aimed these comments at those just starting out, these things really apply to everybody. The feeling of overwhelm never really goes away.

Once you master the controls on your camera you will add other elements to your pictures. Ultimately, you have to find your own way to relax and keep everything fun. Hopefully, these tips will help a little in that regard though.

The post How to Avoid Being Overwhelmed When Learning Photography by Jim Hamel appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

December 3, 2017
How to Create a Minimal Desktop Background Using Photoshop

Ever seen those flowy, innocuous desktop backgrounds that to show up on default computer screens? That’s the exact image I thought of when I messing around with Photoshop for this tutorial. Though they aren’t exact, these simple gradients and shapes come together to spur on a little nostalgia.

This project is pretty straightforward – but it introduced me to a couple techniques I had never come across before. Photoshop has opened up worlds of image-making technology. But when you boil it all down, the culmination of a photographer’s work is in shades of light dispersed within shapes.

I had a good time putting together this tutorial – I even tried out a few on my own desktop. It’s a great way to get familiar with Photoshop operations. But it’s just as fun for a pro, with a bit of photographic downtime on their hands. So let’s dig in.

Getting Started

First, open a new document in Photoshop. Change the dimensions of the canvas to the average desktop background size – 1920 pixels by 1080 pixels, as shown below.

Add a Gradient

Select Layer via the Layers tab on the top toolbar and click on New Fill Layer and then Gradient.

In the pop-up Gradient panel, click on the drop-down arrow and select Simple Gradients.

Select a color from the swatches in the Simple tab.

Choose a color that appeals to you most – whichever one you like best!

Click directly on the panel for the gradient color and a new panel will pop up. This will allow you to further customize your color scheme. Click on the white node below the gradient bar. A color picker will pop up, allowing you to change the white parts of our original gradient to another shade.

At this stage, I would recommend a color similar in shade to your original color. I’m a big fan of pink, so I went with subtle, light shade of pink to complement my overall color scheme. But It’s totally up to you!

Accept the color of the gradient. Select Radial as the style and the scale as 150.

Clicking the Radial setting makes the lighter shade emanate from the center of your image.

Add Another Layer

Next, create a new layer via the layers tab at the top of the screen. Select New in the drop-down menu and select Layer… Click OK at the prompt.

Add a Shape

Click on the Elliptical Marquee Tool. This may be obscured by the Rectangular Marquee Tool, so click and hold the mouse over the tool for a moment to reveal the other options.

With the Elliptical Marquee Tool selected, draw a circle that intersects with the top corner of your image. To keep the elliptical tool even on all sides (in other words, a circle), hold down the Shift key as you drag part of the shape over the top corner.

Open the paintbrush tool and select a nice, soft-edged brush. Set the brush size between 200 to 400 pixels and the hardness level to zero. Select a color in a slightly darker shade. I selected a peachy color.

With the Elliptical Tool still selected, brush around the very outer rim of the quarter-circle with the paintbrush, relying on the softness of the brush to dust the inner rim.

Use a slightly different shade to emphasize the edge of the circle you created.

Duplicate the shape layer as many times as you would like to create an interesting pattern.

Add Dimension

Next, we’ll add a new dimension to the image by using the Rectangular Marquee Tool rather than the Ellipse Tool.

Create a New Layer and then select the Rectangular Marquee tool from the panel. Stretch the Rectangular Marquee Tool across your image so that about half of it is selected, as shown below.

Rectangular selection.

With the same technique and color you used on the ellipse, brush along the perimeter of the shape, leaving only the slightest shadow.

With the rectangle still selected, click on Edit > Transform > Warp. Slowly drag the different points of the rectangular selection to adjust the whole shape of the layer. Try to make gradual edits at first, to keep the line free of sharp angles.

Transform the rectangle.

The edge of the rectangle after transforming.

Blend Modes

Now to add a little more depth to the image, you can apply blending modes to bring out highlights in the background. Select a layer and click on Blending Modes usually located above the Layers panel. Select a setting from the list of Blending Modes available. I usually use the Color Burn option, but feel free to experiment!

Blend modes.

And there you have it! Not bad huh? Amazing what you can do with a few circles and shadows.

Liquify

If you like, try experimenting with the Liquefy tool. It’s found in the Filter tab on the top tools panel.

Before using the liquify tool on an image I constructed using the steps above.

After using the Liquefy tool. You can see that the shapes are now a little more organic.

Over to you!

Here are a few more of my creations. I’d love you see how your desktop background has turned out, please share in the comments below.

A minimalist approach created by twisting a rectangular edge with the Warp Tool.

Now it’s your turn! Show me how it went in the comments.

The post How to Create a Minimal Desktop Background Using Photoshop by Megan Kennedy appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

December 3, 2017
How to Use an On-Camera Speedlight as Fill Flash for Portraits

Using a flash or speedlight on-camera can be daunting at first. This was certainly how I felt when I first purchased my Nikon speedlight. My biggest worry was calculating all the light ratios involved to get a proper exposure as you cannot take into account the actual flash output when metering in-camera. I was also nervous about using a light meter – all that trial and error and faffing, the thought of it all used to make me quake in my boots and swear I’d forever be a natural light photographer. But that was not to be, thankfully.

My main reservation about using flash is the harshness of the light. I hate the “flashed” look on people’s faces, the shadows under the jaws, the bright circular catchlights right in the middle of the iris. As well, the flatness of the face with the direct flash obliterating all possibility of sculpting shadows on the face.

But I live in London where it rains quite a bit, it’s hardly sunny at all, and half the year is cold. All these factors affect natural light and I felt I just had to put aside my reservations and take the leap. And I’m so glad I did.

Let me share with you how I use flash to help me achieve the look I am after and without having to do the mental calculations of light ratios!

#1 Put a diffuser on the flash

It may only be a little plastic thing that goes on top the flash head but I find it makes a difference. The light is less harsh – I know many will disagree about whether it softens the light or not as that is mainly due to the size of light and distance to subject – but I notice a softness from a diffused flash head compared to a bare one.

Left: without a diffuser. Right: with a diffuser.

I only use a flash bare and pointed towards the camera when I am using it as a kicker light and want starburst effects coming from it.

#2 Control the flash manually

Set your flash to manual and choose the power. I’m usually at 1/32 or 1/16 and leave it there. Adjust the flash power only when absolutely necessary. Instead, make the frequent necessary adjustments to your camera settings.

Now I know there are many big fans of ETTL / TTL mode out there. I have tried it too. However, I have gone back to Manual as I find the TTL does not give me the look I want. Essentially, I only want my flash to be a fill light, not the main light and never too strong so that you can see a huge difference between the light coming from the flash and the ambient light. The ETTL / TTL mode is too smart for my needs and increases the output to a pretty high level if it senses that the ambient light is too weak, and vice versa. I felt I’d get an inconsistent output of light for the look I am after although that output may be “correct” in terms of the calculations.

For portraits, I find that the greater the contrast between the dark background and the illumination of the subject with a flash gun, the more I dislike the image. For dancing shots (like at a wedding), however, where I want to illuminate the subject well and freeze the action, I DO point my flash directly at the subject, stop down my aperture to between f/5.6 and f/8 and lower my shutter speed between 1/20th and 1/60th in order to capture ambient light and light trails or background blurring to give the effect of movement.

This image was created using a bare bulb flash (no diffuser) located behind and pointing directly at the couple (off-camera flash). I also had a second flash on-camera with a diffuser, and the flash aimed upward.

This image was created with a diffused flash pointed directly at the couple (camera in front of the couple, flash on-camera) while they were dancing. The motion blur was created by using a slow shutter speed and “dragging the shutter” after the flash has fired.

What I’m after is always a natural look, which, depending on where the main light is coming from, may not be achieved well without some kind of fill or reflected light to illuminate areas that are too dark for my intentions. This is the reason why I always bounce or angle my flash gun for most scenarios other than dancing as explained above.

#3 Bounce it

On some newer models, there is also a little white pull-out bounce card that is extremely useful if your ceilings are too high for the light to bounce off or you just want to point reflected light in a particular direction. When I shoot weddings where the rooms have very high ceilings or dark beams and ceilings. So I pull out the bounce card and use it to deflect the light coming from the flash. The handy swivel action helps me direct the reflected light wherever I want it to go.

My speedlight with the white bounce card extended.

As an aside, I use this setup for off-camera flash too. When I’m putting two speedlights opposite each other in a room to provide directional light during speeches, I point the flash heads upwards and pull out the diffuser so that all the reflected light is pointed inwards towards the center of the room.

#4 Angle it

The head of most speedlights can swivel right and left up to 90 degrees each way and forward and upward to 90 degrees in incremental angles. It is an awesome functionality that you should take advantage of especially for fill flash.

In the photos below, bright sunlight was coming from camera right at 45 degrees on a bright day. All I wanted was a bit of fill flash on their shadowed faces, just enough to lift the shadows a tad. What I really wanted to avoid was for the image to look like there was another light source other than that from the sun. To achieve this, I angled my speedlight upwards towards the back by one increment.

Flash as a fill light

As you can see, these photos below have very strong sunlight coming directly at the subjects and towards the camera, a very strong backlit light. It is extremely difficult to overpower this type of light without using a strong flash. What I did was angle myself slightly to one side and pointed my flash directly at the subjects’ faces to try and counteract the sunlight.

This is when I adjust my flash power and increase it accordingly. The result is not as clean and sharp as if I had a big softbox firing at 70% ratio to the sun’s power but it still shows the faces clearly enough with some diffused hazy light in the background, which was also my intention for these shots.

Compare the two images below. The one on the left was taken in a big open space with a dense foliage background which blocked the light. There was enough light here to illuminate their faces that I could have done away with the flash altogether, but I pointed the flash backward to add just a tiny bit of light over my head. I don’t think it made a huge difference but it made me feel better and consistent!

The image on the right was taken in a shaded open area surrounded by tall trees which diffused the light coming from the background. Without the trees, it would have had the unfiltered effect as above, but despite the trees, this is still very much a backlit position as the background was very bright still. More fill light was needed there so I pointed the speedlight slightly upwards, with one increment down towards the subjects but not directly at their faces.

You can see the same flash angle as above on these close-up portraits below.

Make it moody

In the same spot as above, I wanted a look that was a little moodier than those close-ups so I pointed the speedlight directly upwards this time. So although their faces are still amply lit up, the image to feels like they are being enveloped by the diffused light behind them.

Tricky situations

The couple wanted a shot showing the lake and the trees in the far distance. The distance was too great to get the couple and the background sharp enough without using a really small aperture and a lot of artificial light (flash). Note that we were also in the shaded part of the lake which made it more difficult. I decided therefore that I would take a cozy shot that focused mainly on the background. The couple looking towards the trees, although they are not the lit focal point, they are still clearly visible and sharp. I pointed the speedlight slightly forwards to give them just a hint of light and shot with a small aperture.

Contrast the top image below to the photo directly underneath it where the depth of field has changed massively – the background now is blurry and the couple is in focus. This had the same angle of flash, slightly forwards, but of course, my camera settings changed to a wider aperture and lower ISO to balance the exposure. Now with the couple still in the same shaded spot, the angled flash was clearly essential here. Had I pointed the flash directly to their faces, it would have been too obvious and would kill the natural light ambiance that I was aiming for.

For this ring shot below, we sat on a bench with the sunlight coming from camera left. I put the ring on my phone to get a dark background and a nice reflection. With ring shots, I always stop down to at least f/7 with a macro lens. Therefore I need to make sure there is plenty of light for the shot as macro lenses tend to suck light.

I also always use a speedlight pointed directly opposite the main light. So in this case where the light is at camera left at 8 o’clock (if you’re looking at a clock face with the diamond at 6 o’clock), I swiveled my flash head to the opposite at around 4 o’clock to give off a bit of reflected light on the right side of the ring.

Likewise, on the photo below, you can clearly see where the sunlight is coming from so I pointed my speedlight slightly upwards to camera left, opposite the sunlight. This angle helped me achieve a gradual decrease of light from right to left as opposed to a dramatic one where you can see a clear cut-off from light to dark.

Your turn to try doing fill flash

If you haven’t tried using flash like this before, I encourage you to do so. Experiment and see how it could work for you. You don’t need to learn the lighting ratios and calculations off by heart to be able to get images you are after, although that could be handy.

Sometimes all you need is confidence, common sense, and a willingness to try. I hope you found this little tutorial useful. If you have more tips, share them in the comments below.

The post How to Use an On-Camera Speedlight as Fill Flash for Portraits by Lily Sawyer appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

December 3, 2017
Weekly Photography Challenge – Framing
There are many ways to compose or images and many different elements you can use for effective composition. Framing is one such element of composition that can be very powerful for leading the viewer’s eye when done well.

Eastman Kodak House (the home of George Eastman who founded Kodak) framed by the trees in the front garden.

Weekly Photography Challenge – Framing

Framing isn’t just about finding an archway, window, or doorway to shoot through though. You need to have a strong and interesting subject inside the frame. An empty parking lot framed with a stunning doorway is still a boring, empty parking lot.

Here some tips if you need help with your framing:
- How to Use Framing in an Urban Environment
- Tips for Framing your Images to Tell a More Compelling Story
- How to Use Framing to Create a Sense of Scale
- Tips for Using Natural Framing to Improve Your Composition
- How to Use Framing for More Effective Compositions
I shot this Japanese style pagoda closer up, but it was lacking something. So after walking down the path, I turned around and shot it again, this time using the large trees as framing elements.

Simply upload your shot into the comment field (look for the little camera icon in the Disqus comments section) and they’ll get embedded for us all to see or if you’d prefer, upload them to your favorite photo-sharing site and leave the link to them. Show me your best images in this week’s challenge. Sometimes it takes a while for an image to appear so be patient and try not to post the same image twice.

Share in the dPS Facebook Group

You can also share your images in the dPS Facebook group as the challenge is posted there each week as well.

The post Weekly Photography Challenge – Framing by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School
December 2, 2017
Video Tips: Composition Dos and Don’ts For Creating Better Images
How you compose or arrange your frame is one of the keys to creating interesting and compelling images. So learning some composition rules, and when to break them is essential.

Here are three short videos to help you see what to do and what to avoid in your composition.

Composition Mistakes to Avoid

Learn what not to do in this video including:
- Double subjects
- Looking out of the frame
- Tangents (lines cutting through the subject)
- Lazy composition
Beginner’s guide to composition

In this second video, Jordan from Sleeklens gives you four tips you can use to help elevate your photography composition.

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The four tips covered include:
1. Rule of thirds
2. Balance
3. Symmetry
4. Leading Lines
9 Composition Tips

Finally, in this last video from COOPH you will see nine more composition tips based on the images of master photographer, Steve McCurry.

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Do you have any other composition tips you would like to share? Please do so in the comments section below.

The post Video Tips: Composition Dos and Don’ts For Creating Better Images by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School
December 1, 2017
How to use Off-Camera Flash to Create Dramatic Images with Cross Lighting

Learning to use off-camera flash allows you to create and shape light, giving you plenty of new opportunities for dramatic photography.

But for many photographers, starting up with flash can be intimidating. It’s not just a matter of aiming a flash at your subject and hoping for the best. Choosing the wrong angle or positioning for your flash can have a negative effect, casting unflattering or irregular shadows.

A tennis player lit by off-camera flash cross lighting

I remember when I was starting out with off-camera flash I would sometimes get images where the light simply didn’t look right. But when it’s used effectively, flash adds to an image – it shouldn’t make the lighting seem unnatural or otherworldly (unless, of course, that’s the effect you’re going for – to each their own!).

But where’s a good place to start? Where should you put your flash in order to get good light? This article will show you one method you can use called cross lighting that you can use to create dramatic images with off-camera flash.

What is cross lighting?

For both beginners and pros alike, cross lighting is a very quick and simple setup that results in a dramatic, well-lit shot.

Like the name implies, this setup features two light sources on opposite sides of the subject. Hitting your subject from both sides adds a sense of depth to the image, while still producing natural-looking light.

An example showing an off-camera flash cross lighting setup for a portrait of a tennis player.

The key or main light

Typically you want your light that will provide the most illumination, also know as the key light, placed in front of the subject and a bit to one side. For portraits, you will typically want to use a modifier on your light, such as a softbox or umbrella. This isn’t a requirement – but it will help soften the shadows and create more flattering light on the subject.

The purpose of this key flash is to light up the subject’s features and put a sparkle of catch light in their eyes.

We convinced this model to act as our stand-in for a few quick portrait shots. Here is an image with only the key light, an off-camera flash positioned to the right of the camera.

Add a second flash as a rim or separation light

The second light is placed behind the subject on the opposite side as the first one. The purpose of this light is to create an “edge” of light around your subject. This is traditionally called a “rim light” or a “separation light” since it helps to separate the subject from the background.

By adding a second light to the left of the camera and behind our model, we’ve created a rim of light that separates him from the background for a much more pleasing and dynamic image. Notice the highlight on his hat and hand on the left side.

Voila! This quick setup is an easy way to get started and start exploring the creative potential of a shoot. As you begin to snap pictures, you may find something about your setup that you want to change, but the cross lighting gives you a solid foundation from which to build.

We’ve flipped the orientation of the lights for this shot – while keeping the same cross-lighting style. Now our key light is on the left, and the rim light is provided from the right.

Quick to set up

One of the reasons I love using this setup for off-camera flash is that it takes away the guesswork and provides a solid foundation of light that you can then begin to work with and modify.

And also that it takes only moments to set up! When you start lugging around multiple flash units, light stands, and modifiers, it’s nice to have a consistent starting position that provides even lighting.

An overview of our setup, with the flashes oriented for cross-lighting and our subject right in between.

The final shot, where the light has given a sense of depth to make the subject stand out from the clutter behind him.

It’s a good idea to get the correct flash power for your key light dialed in before adding your second flash. Trying to figure out the correct outputs for two lights at the same time and adjusting in your camera on the fly is a recipe for a headache.

Cross lighting with a single flash

One of the reasons this setup is so easy and versatile is because you don’t necessarily need to use two flash units – the sun can step in as either your key or secondary light.

This approach is particularly effective at golden hour. As evening falls and soft, warm light floods across the fields, you have a ready-made separation light. Many natural light photographers are already familiar with this and use this rim light in their shots.

The key light here is an off-camera flash fired into an umbrella just outside the left edge of the image. The sun, coming from the right, acts as the secondary light. The key here is in balancing the flash with the natural light.

The benefit of adding an off-camera flash as a key light is that you can create a much more dramatic image with dark, rich colors. Colors lose their vibrancy as they get brighter. By keeping the exposure low and using your off-camera flash to light up your subject, your background can be full of vivid contrast and color.

Using the sun as your key light

The sun doesn’t always have to play second fiddle to your flash. You can create the same effect by using the sun as your key light – coming in at your subject from a slight angle – and then using your off-camera flash as the rim or separation light.

The biggest drawback here is that you can’t adjust the power of the sun quite as easily as you can on the back of your flash! However, taking the time to learn how your camera settings can make a picture darker or lighter, and how you can use this skills in conjunction with your off-camera flash, will give you allow you to build the shot you want.

Cross lighting with a flash and a reflector

Here’s the last variation of this setup. By setting up your off-camera flash on one side of the subject and angling a reflector just right on the other, you can mimic the effect of two light sources. This approach might take a bit of practice and a steady hand, but it’s a fun way to learn what you can accomplish as you learn how to control light.

Here we used a reflector to provide the key light from the left side of the shot, while the sun comes from the back right.

Give it a shot

Learning to maneuver and shape light is a fun challenge. Being able to quickly and reliably get top-notch results with flash is an important aspect of photography – especially if your model or clients are waiting impatiently for you to get your lighting figured out.

By starting with cross lighting and working from there, you have a reliable method for nailing some great shots. Please share your comments, questions and cross lighting images in the comments section below.

The post How to use Off-Camera Flash to Create Dramatic Images with Cross Lighting by Frank Myrland appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

December 1, 2017
Lightroom Mobile – The Secret to Shooting and Editing on Your Smartphone
Why use Lightroom Mobile

Many people don’t realize the benefits of using Lightroom Mobile with your Adobe Lightroom Subscription. When you subscribe to Adobe’s Photographer’s plan, not only will you receive Adobe Lightroom Classic, but you also get access to Lightroom Mobile.

Lightroom Mobile is a cloud-based program which originates from your Lightroom Classic desktop. It’s easy to set up, and Adobe’s help desk is there to quickly assist if you have any questions. You not only have the ability to share your images across multiple devices, but you can also shoot and edit quality RAW images right from your phone or tablet.

Setting up Lightroom Mobile

The first thing you need to do is enable Lightroom Mobile from within your desktop version of Lightroom. This will signal Lightroom to sync the files that you select. Below is a screenshot of Lightroom’s Activity Screen that shows the status of Lightroom mobile. The activity screen is located in the upper left-hand corner of your Lightroom desktop page.

Creating Collections

The secret to working with Lightroom Mobile is to create collections within your Lightroom desktop version that you want to sync with Mobile. It will not automatically sync everything in your Lightroom catalog, you have to tell it which images you want to show on your devices and this is done through collections. I wouldn’t recommend syncing all your images to Lightroom Mobile. Leave this for special collections and your portfolio.

Select a group of images you would like to include in a collection and navigate to the collection module on the left panel of the Lightroom desktop app. Click the + sign in the collections pane to create a new collection.

Create a new collection.

Once you have created the collections and added images to them, you need to be sure that these collections will sync. When you first create them, there is a box to tick to enable Lightroom Mobile and syncing between devices – make sure that is checked off.

Enable Lightroom Mobile

If you don’t enable Lightroom Mobile upon import or when you create a new collection, you can always enable it after the fact by making sure the firebolt is enabled located to the left of the collection name. Just tick the box next to the collection you want to sync and the firebolt will show.

Firebolt Icon is Located to the Left of the Collection Title

To stop a Collection from syncing with your device, do one of the following in the Collections panel:
- Click the firebolt sync icon next to the name of the Collection to turn it off.
- Right-click a Collection and deselect Sync With Lightroom Mobile from the sync menu.
Viewing Images on Your Device

If your Lightroom Mobile is enabled correctly, you will need to sign into the Adobe Creative Cloud with your password. The mobile version should start filling up with the collections you enabled on your Lightroom desktop. You can also enable Lightroom Mobile to automatically pull images that you take from your Mobile device. Make sure you create a special collection of those images only.

Creating Images with Lightroom Mobile

With the current version of Lightroom mobile, you can create images on your Smartphone with the app. It gives you the option of either shooting in JPG or DNG. You can also shoot in automatic or professional mode and use a variety of presets. I prefer to shoot an image without any preset adjustments made to it and apply any edits afterward. That way you will always have the un-retouched original image.

The automatic shooting mode on Lightroom mobile works really well. It gives you separate focus and exposure points as well as overexposure indicators that show up as a series of parallel lines indicating highlight clipping. These three tools are the keys to getting a good shot on your mobile device. If you scrub left or right on the screen, the highlight clipping indicators will go away when the exposure becomes balanced. If portions of the image are overexposed, it will show up as you see in the image of my white dog below.

Automatic Shooting Mode with Over Exposure Highlights

The beauty of using Lightroom Mobile is you can edit images on your Mobile device or from your main computer. They can be located in a collection taken with your DSLR, or they can be images taken with your cell phone and located in your Lightroom Mobil collection.

Note: if you have your monitor calibrated, the colors may come out differently on your pad or phone if you decide to edit from there. No editing is permanent within Lightroom, so it’s an easy fix if it doesn’t look right on your main desktop computer.

One of the keys to success in mobile photography is to get it right in the camera just like a DSLR. Using these tools with this intuitive mobile app will help you accomplish that goal.

Please keep in mind, your phone or tablet is not a DSLR, so know that the images will not be of the same quality as a high megapixel DSLR. However, the Lightroom Mobile camera app gives you some great tools to create some really nice Smartphone images.

Editing in Lightroom Mobile

Once you have created your images and imported them to Lightroom Mobile (either from your desktop or from your smartphone), you have almost as many options for editing on your device as you do on your desktop.

If you tap on the edit screen in the top left corner, it will open up a menu of several different editing options.

Select the Edit Tool

On the edit screen, you can choose to edit the image globally or choose selections and edit specific areas individually. This is how to start a post-processing workflow, whether you’re using Lightroom Classic CC desktop version or Lightroom Mobile.

Then you can go through the different options for post-processing, starting with light, color, effects and finishing off with detail. You can also make a selection in your image and go through all of those same adjustments, just affecting the selected areas.

Local Adjustments

By tapping on the selective icon on the bottom left, it will bring up a menu with a paintbrush. Tap on the brush, and then select the middle brush size and paint with your finger over the area you would like to edit. If you overdo it, you can use the eraser tool to clean up your selection. After you make the selection, then you can make any number of adjustments on just that area. Once you have made all the necessary adjustments, save your edits.

Using this technique will give you the most interesting effects by truly painting with light and not just adding random light adjustments for the whole image.

Give Lightroom Mobile a try and make it a part of your everyday photo organizing and editing. Give some of these selective tools a try and let me know how it goes in the comments area below.

The post Lightroom Mobile – The Secret to Shooting and Editing on Your Smartphone by Holly Higbee-Jansen appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School
November 30, 2017
Water in Red Mountain Open Space – Fat Bike Exploration

As a paddler I am always looking for water. Anytime! Anywhere! In November 2017 I made several visits to Red Mountain Open Space north of Fort Collins with my new Salsa Mukluk fat bike. I covered all possible trails. Technically, […]
paddling with a camera

November 30, 2017