Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Curious Eyes

I was photographing kids over the past weekend and this is one of my favourite photos from one of the session. I like the happy look of the girl and the smile on her face. This is for me the main challenge when photographing kids --- to make them relax and forget about them being photographed. Otherwise the light setup is pretty easy, main light through a softbox to camera right (creating a broad lighting pattern on her face) and reflector on the left. Behind the girl there was one Speedlite 580 EX II with a diffuser lighting the gray collapsible background. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark ii with Canon 70-200 2.8 IS II at 200mm, F14 @ 1/125, ISO 200.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Dynamic and Elegant

Last week a took a photography workshop in Prague and today I am presenting one of the portraits that I like quite a bit. It is a simple one light setting with a reflector to camera right and a background light. What I think works well is the direct, confident yet soft look of the model with a less usual off-centered composition which breaks the overall softness and adds some dynamics. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark ii with Canon 70-200 4L at 149mm, F10 @ 1/160, ISO 100.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Sunset Portrait

Today I was visiting a summer house of my parents and we experienced a beautiful sunset. I had luckily my camera with me but only a limited set of accessories (read it as one on-camera flash). I was thinking how to light the portrait of my parents and then I saw a white fishing house on the shore, moreover with relatively white wall where I directed my flash to in order to bounce the light back on the scene. Finding the right spot for my parents to stand was little bit tricky (see that attached photo with the location of the fishing house and the place where they stand) but we managed and pulled out a nice photo with great directional light. The same photo with a direct on-camera flash would be flat and artificially looking. The light coming from the right direction was the key to this more pleasing portrait where the light looks definitely natural and more attractive. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark ii with Canon 24-105 4L USM at 35mm, F8 @ 1/125, ISO 800.