I love working in low light conditions but the shoot I did a few days ago over at Greenwich really stretched me and my equipment to the limit. This wasn’t just low light, for the most part we had no light. If that wasn’t challenging enough, add the beautiful Dilsa wearing a black dress and black hat and you guessed it we have a serious issue to contend with.
Now I’ve found a good lighting diagram tool on the web, http://lightingdiagrams.com, I’m planning to write a series of posts that describe how I made an image and in particular how I lit it.
This article is the first such post and I’m going to start off really, really simple with the light-trail image I made on one of my twilight fashion shoots earlier in the year.
This is just about as simple as it gets when starting to add flash to light an image and the whole this was made from a single exposure, a single flashgun mounted on a light stand and a radio trigger. I did add a little spice though in the way that I created the background effect but I’ll explain how I achieved it and also why it works below. Continue reading Behind the scenes – Light Trails »
Last year on holiday the sunsets were absolutely fantastic. This year they were nothing to speak of, mainly down to the lack of clouds. Nevertheless, with a little creative thought it is still possible to make a great sunset portrait without resorting to Photoshop.
Take this image for example. The inset is the true representation of the scene but by bending the colours of the background you can create a cool portrait, in camera. Granted you can achieve the same in Photoshop, and indeed I’m not averse to that, but as this is so easy to do at the point of capture it makes sense to avoid having to manipulate if after the fact.
The secret to this image is to get the camera to change the colours in the background for you whilst leaving those in the foreground untouched. Sound complicated? Believe it or not it is incredibly simple and only takes a couple of minutes to do. Continue reading Bending colours to make a sunset sizzle »
I love working with low light and twilight is the most magical low light situation of them all. Here’s some shots I did recently next to the River Thames.
Hope you like them.
Here is a selection of images taken during a recent beauty and make-up shoot over at Notting Hill.
It was a very busy day. Four great models and 2 MUAs. Three changes of outfit/looks for the models. Three shooting locations: my portable studio, low light and soft, natural light. And all this within just one basement flat.
I think that is why I love doing this – I can turn up at a location I’ve never seen before with a plan and the kit to make it work. Very often the location will throw up many more opportunities than I would have imagined. Take the low light images in this set for example. When I saw the hallway with it’s black and gold walls, the shaded wall lamps and the picture mirror I knew instantly I would get some really great shots. It pushed me to the limits of my equipment but nevertheless, it performed admirably. For the techies, most of the low light work was taken hand-held at ISO1600, f2.8 at about 1/30 to 1/15. Continue reading Notting Hill Beauty Shoot »
Hi, I'm Gavin the photographer.
I used to work in IT until a few years ago. I was under a lot of stress at work and getting really p*****d off. Then one day I chose to give it all up and follow a dream. Everyone I knew thought I was nuts, that just made me try harder :-)
I believe any photographer can do what I did, earn money from their photos, maybe even start their own business.
Join my VIP members today (it's free) and make your first step into professional or semi-professional photography.
PS, You can also find me on Google+
