360Photography

Time was, things were simpler and fluorescent lights only required a 30CC magenta filter in front of your film-based camera lens to bring them into line. Green your flash and you were done. Then the hippies took over and now we have CFLs pretty much everywhere. And they are not all the same color, either.

Today, Joel Svendsen (who is not a professional actor but merely an ordinary person much like yourself) will walk you through how to correct for the various types of fluorescent lights.

It is geared towards video but you can translate pretty easily. The big difference is that video folks frequently work with tungsten lights. Or as they apparently call it, a package.

But thanks to Joel I shall henceforth think of warm CFLs, for instance, as sort of a weird combo of tungsten and fluorescent, both of which need to be fixed.

Joel, BTW, is the man at Rosco behind the Strobist Collection gel pack — which also saved the gel sample program from certain death. And that means that he drinks for free in Baltimore, whenever he visits.

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Strobist

UPDATE:

Many thanks,
DH
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Tired of the hyper-polarized election season? How would you like to spend Tuesday, November 2nd doing something worthwhile — and nonpolitical — with your camera?

Don’t get me wrong — I am gonna vote. But I thought it would be cool to spend the rest of Election Day doing something real with my camera to benefit a very worthy local organization. It is gonna be in a beautiful outdoor setting, and I think it will be a lot of fun.

If you might be interested in helping, keep reading.
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I am organizing a group of photographers to spend a day (or part of a day) at an historic farm in Howard County, MD. It is a nonprofit organization that focuses on the preservation of farm history, and we will be shooting to provide photos for their use on the website, brochures, educational presentations, etc.

There are a couple other very cool layers involved. But that is not something I am ready to talk about publicly on the site yet, for reasons that will become obvious should you decide to join us. Suffice to say that it will be fun, creative and we’ll be helping a worthy cause.

Possibilities for shooting will span from sunrise (yeesh!) to after sunset. So for those of you who are self-employed and/or at least partially in control of your own time, there is some flexibility. But you should be willing to commit for a few hours or so.

And that is all I am gonna say. A little cryptic, to be sure. But as I said, there will be more info coming.

If you are interested in taking a little bit of a photographic flyer, please leave your name, city of residence, email and phone number in a comment on this post. Also, give me ONE SENTENCE about you as a photographer — your specialty, skill level, boxers or briefs — whatever.

It would also help if you could let me know your overall availability for the day. Logistically, I’d rather have someone for an afternoon than a lunch hour.

Important: No comments will be moderated into print, so your info will not be made public. If we have worked together before, please remind me.

I’ll choose a dozen or so of the most appropriate people, and be in touch with you either way (with more info, if appropriate) by the end of the day.

So, are you in?

Strobist

Until earlier this year I had never heard of underwater portraiture.  But in researching underwater housings for my DSLR, I came across Sacha Blue’s website.  I got even more excited to find out she lived right here in the Puget Sound region of Washington State.  While she also shoots weddings and traditional portraiture, her work under the surface is a refreshing look at portrait photography.

1. Tell me a bit about your photography background. When did you first get interested in cameras and photos?

I grew up with a portrait studio and darkroom in the house and I can’t think of any specific defining moment where I fell in love with photography. I do remember being 15 and taking pictures of my best friend and that when my mom saw them she decided that I had “the eye” and was born to be a photographer.

2. What prompted you to make photography your current career?

It sounds silly but it just kind of happened. I have a hard time imagining myself doing something that wasn’t photography related.

3. How did your interest in underwater portraiture begin?

I received my scuba certification in 2008 and immediately wanted to photograph everything I saw while diving. Torn between getting a housing for a DSLR and a point and shoot I found a great deal on a used housing for a D200 and justified the extra cost by deciding I would use it for underwater portraits when I returned. Given that so many of the couples I had worked with before had gotten in water it wasn’t much of a stretch to think I would enjoy shooting under the surface too.

4. How big or small was your learning curve once you decided to start shooting portraits underwater? What unique photographic challenges have you had to overcome?

For starters shooting with my camera in a housing was an adjustment that made me notice just how automated I’d made things above the surface. Suddenly I had to stop and think about which dial to turn to adjust basic things like aperture and shutter speed and just turning the camera on and off was a challenge. I think it was pretty easy for me to adapt my experience as a photographer to taking pictures underwater. The obstacles mostly revolved around discovering differences in the way things worked underwater and finding ways to compensate for them to get the images I wanted. The biggest challenges for me have been working with fabric, achieving flattering facial expressions, open eyes in group portraits, and keeping hair manageable and looking good. It’s not all bad though – people are a lot more flexible underwater and can position themselves in ways that would not work elsewhere.

5. What type of equipment do you have to employ for your shoots? Do you use SCUBA gear?

In most cases I’m using a D200 in an Ikelite housing without scuba gear.

6. Are most of your shoots done with available light, or do you take strobes underwater with you?

I have yet to take strobes underwater and everything I’ve done has been with available light. Sometimes available light is the light built into a swimming pool.

7. For those wishing to try this obviously fun, yet demanding style of shooting, what advice can you pass on?

I usually suggest renting a housing or starting with the less expensive bag style and purchasing a full housing if they find it’s something they enjoy and will do a lot more. Start in the calm waters of a swimming pool and use models that are really comfortable in the water. I’ve had really good luck using competitive swimmers for this. Shoot at or near the surface to get reflections and avoid color casts and use wide angle lenses to get close to your subject and avoid hazy images. Dresses are a lot of fun underwater but remember they can get very heavy when wet and are awkward to swim in so pay close attention to your subject and their comfort and energy levels and be prepared to take frequent brakes. Much like other types of portraiture direct sunlight can be quite harsh and the even light of shade is generally more appealing.

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More of Sacha’s work can be found on her website, Facebook or by following her on Twitter.

Post from: Digital Photography School

Digital Photography School