A Portrait in Autumn Colours

Last weekend I had a very pleasant photo shoot with two kids of my wife's friend. This is one of the pictures that I liked most. The nice separation from the background was achieved by underexposing it by one stop. The light is coming from the camera left where my assistant is holding a 430EX flash with 1/4 CTO gel and a shoot-through translucent umbrella on a monopod. My Canon 5D synchonizes only up to 1/200s, however, with the new PocketWizards Flex and Mini I could actually achieve a synchronization at 1/250s, which allowed for a better background blur at F4. The young lady was very happy with the final result. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark ii with Canon 70-200 4F at 168mm, F4 @ 1/250, ISO 100.

A Small Girl in a Big World

Here is another natural light portrait which I like quite a bit. The positioning of the girl quite a bit off the center to the right (even behind the rule of thirds) adds some drama and expectation to the photo, while on the other hand the blue/violet color tones allow the viewer to calm down. Another point which I think makes the photo to pop up is its simplicity. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark ii with Sigma 50mm 1,4 at 50mm, F2,8 @ 1/160, ISO 100.

Oh my Darling ...

I really like this portrait I took in spring this year. The day was cloudy and provided very even soft lighting so it was nearly impossible to take a bad picture. The long zoom lens at F4 helped to achieve a nice blurry background attracting the attention to her eyes. The depth of field was just a few centimeters so even the eye further away is out of focus. But as long as the front eye is perfectly in focus, the photo looks very sharp. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark II with 70-200 4L at 172mm, F4.0 @ 1/200, ISO 200.

Running for Joy

I took this photo several years ago. I managed to get about three shots and this one was the best and the sharpest one. These little dogs can run really fast, so it is a good idea to go for the servo mode. Camera spec: Canon 20D with Canon 28-105 3.5-4.5 at 105mm, F7.1 @ 1/200, ISO 200.

A Break Dancer

A few years ago I was visiting Stuttgart and met a bunch of very skilled break dancers performing on the street. I asked for their email and send them a few pictures I took during their performance. We exchanged a few emails and quickly agreed on a small photo session in a nearby park. This picture was one of the best thanks to the diagonal composition and the fact that all leading lines point towards the dancers face (the leg, the ground line of the right hand-side buidling, the join line between the left and right hand-side bulding). The colours were slightly enhanced in Lightroom. The photo is natural light only with a little bit on-camera flash as fill-in. Camera spec: Canon 20D with Canon 28-105 3.5-4.5 at 30mm, F8 @ 1/125, ISO 200.

The Palace of Justice

Putrajaya in Malaysia is a great place to visit at night. There are absolutely no people at all and all buildings are lighten up. This photo of Palace of Justice was taken at around 1 am from my mini-tripod at the ground level. The symmetry of the buildings, reflections and colors were really great. Camera spec: Canon 40D with Tokina 11-16 2,8 at 12mm, F8 @ 3.2s, ISO 200.

Petronas Twin Towers

Sure, everybody has a photo of these famous twin tower buildings in Kuala Lumpur. The towers have been photographed from all possible different angles and positions. It is very hard to come up with some original composition, so I tried at least to provide a less usual angle for the shot. As I didn't have a standard size tripod so I dialed up a higher ISO and leaned by elbows against my friend's shoulder. His hands were also working as gobos to protect my Tokina 11-16 from some nasty side lights which were causing several reflections in the photo. Indeed, Tokina lens is really an amazing piece of glass but it suffers from reflections quite a lot. Camera spec: Canon 40D with Tokina 11-16 2.8 at 16mm, F5.6 @ 1/15, ISO 800.

Putrajaya Bridge at Night

Here comes another photo from my recent trip to Malaysia. It is a bridge in Putrajaya in the administrative complex of the country. We went on a night trip along side the local river (thank you our taxi driver again for the warning about snakes!) and I took several amazing night shots of buildings and bridges. I liked this one perhaps most, mainly because of the wide spectrum of colors and the buildings in the background peeking out behind the bridge construction. Camera spec: Canon 40D with 28-105 3.5-4.5 at 88mm, F8 @ 13s, ISO 100.

Tourist Map Lighting

I have just returned from a trip to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and will share some pictures I took there with you, starting with this quick portrait. We visited the telecommunication tower in Kuala Lumpur from where there is an astonishing view on the numerous skyscrapers. I was traveling light and had only my Canon 430EX II on-camera flash. The direct flash looked very ugly in this situation, no details in the object's face and numerous reflections in the glass behind. The ceiling was too high to bounce the light over my left or right shoulder as I needed to properly expose the background as well. In this situation, I would normally use my reflector to bounce my on-camera flash off. However, what to do if no reflector is available? I suggested another friend of mine to take off his T-shirt and hold it up but he (as expected) refused :-) So we were looking for something else to reflect the light off and at the end used the tourist map of Kuala Lumpur. See the attached photo of this free and highly portable reflector setup. The map was placed relatively close to the object's face and we obtained very nice directional lighting emphasizing the feel of depth in the face.

I would also like to discuss the composition of this photo. Note how the space is divided into two spaces of about the same size. On the left part of the photo are Petronas Twin Towers, nicely framed in the glass window frames. I placed my friend's face into a triangle in the right part of the photo and his right hand connects the two spaces. The uniform colors add to the harmony of the whole composition. Camera spec: Canon 40D with Tokina 11-16mm 2,8 at 16mm, F8 @ 1/250, ISO 200, Canon 430EX II on-camera flash bounced off a tourist map to the left.

Durgam Cheruvu, the Secret Lake

This landscape photo was taken in the city of Hyderabad during one my trips to India. It pictures Durgam Cheruvu, also called the secret lake. A perfect place for a small picnic. We had the pleasure to visit this lake during the sunset time, which provided perfect colors and I was lucky enough to have my Manfrotto mini tripod to allow for a 4s exposure. The photo was slightly enhanced in lightroom by adding a graduated filter for the sky and by increasing the saturation and the black point. Camera spec: Canon 20D with Canon 28-105 3,5-4,5 at 28mm, F11 @ 4s, ISO 100.

Cowherd from India

Here comes another picture from my trip to India. We were on our way to Agra and stopped in an restaurant near the road. The place was on countryside and after our lunch I took a quick walk at the backyard and found this young man taking care of cows. He kindly agreed to pose for my camera. Camera spec: Canon 20D with Canon 28-105 3,5-4,5 at 95mm, F5,6 @ 1/400, ISO 100.

Sunrise at Taj Mahal

Let us leave the belly dance for a while now. Today I would like to show you something different. A few years ago I was traveling through India and had the pleasure to visit the famous Taj Mahal. The composition of this photo is pretty straightforward: dead centered accenting the amazing symmetry of the building. There is a slight mirror reflection in the water, I just wish I had a wider lens with me that time so that I could have come closer and get more of it. What I think is special about this particular picture compared to what most tourists get on their compact cameras is that there are no people on the photo. This was achieved first of all by getting up very early in the morning. I remember that when I asked our driver to depart from our hotel at around 4:30 am, he could not believe his ears. It was little bit foggy that day but the first sun beams offered some beautiful, nontraditional colors. Still, there were a few people left on the photo (it is virtually impossible to be alone in a place like this) which I could quickly remove in lightroom using the clone tool. Camera spec: Canon 20D with 28-105 3.5-4.5 at 28mm, F8 @ 1/200, ISO 200.

Can You Feel the Movement?

Finally let me post one more picture closing the belly dance photo session I was writing about recently. This time the image was taken without any flash in order to achieve the motion blur. I really like the play of colors and the feel of movement. These pictures are easy to take and often provide very attractive add-ons to a photo reportage. Just dial on some slow shutter speed (1/4 to 1/10 second works best for me) and wait for the right moment when the dancers start to move, rotate or jump. Camera spec: Canon 40D with 24-105 4L at 24mm, F7,1 @ 1/4, ISO 400.

Young Talent

Here comes another picture from the belly dance meeting. The technique I used was the same as described in the previous post. Using an off-camera flash from the side and slightly behind the subject gives consistently very pleasing results. This makes a clear difference compared to using a direct flash that will definitely cast some ugly shadows on the curtain in the background (no matter that it is a black one in this case). Camera spec: Canon 5D mark II with 24-105 4L at 70mm, F6.3 @ 1/200, ISO 400.

Belly Dancer

I wrote in my profile that I am interested in creative lighting techniques but the pictures I have posted in my blog so far used mainly natural (btw. who says that one cannot be creative with natural light!). Anyway, here comes a photo I took at a local belly dance meeting this spring. I used an off-camera flash (Canon 420EX set as a slave in group B) mounted on the stage in the top right corner on my Gorillapod SLR-zoom tripod. This set up was very easy and very quick. My on-camera flash Canon 580EX II with Lumiquest Mini Softbox was set as a master with ratio about 1:4 in order to provide some fill-in light. Finally, in postprocessing I used the brush tool in Lightroom to darken the corners of the picture and to create a nice spot-like circle around the dancer's feet. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark II with 24-105 4L at 84mm, F6.3 @ 1/200, ISO 800.

A Special Moment

Sometimes you take a first look at a photograph and you immediately get the feeling that you captured something special. The picture above is an example of such a photograph: a farther with his daughter share a special moment. What do they think about? At least in my eyes the photo is full of emotions and I am very glad I captured these exact expressions in their faces. In fact, they already though that the photo-shoot was over and were not aware of me taking this quick candid picture with my tele-photo lens. This is usually the best moment for recording true emotions of the photographed people. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark II with 70-200 4L at 200mm, F4 @ 1/200, ISO 320.

Grandpa Is Posing

My grandpa is soon turning 88 years and a few days ago I had the opportunity to take his portrait. The sun was high so I used my on-camera flash to fill in the hard shadows on his face. What I like on the photo is the composition which divides the space in three parts with my grandpa standing in the middle. The contrasting colors---beautiful blue sky, green grass and brown cottage wall---add a dramatic feeling to the photo. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark II with 24-105 4L at 24mm, F8 @ 1/400, ISO 50.

Saint Michel at Night

I little bit less than a year ago I was at a conference at Saint Malo in France and we had a conference trip to Saint Michel. This place was amazing and at night I took this long 15 second exposure of this rocky tidal island. I used my portable manfrotto mini-tripod placed on one of the tables in a nearby restaurant where we had a delicious dinner. Camera spec: Canon 20D with 28-105 3.5-4.5 at 105mm, F6.3 @ 15s, ISO 200.

Bulgarian Beauty

I took this photo during my recent trip to Ruse in Bulgaria. It was just a quick candid during a political meeting on the main square in Ruse. I like the soft light on her face and the reflections in her glasses. The shoulder of the man in foreground provided a nice framing and a feel of depth. Camera spec: Canon 20D with Canon 28-105 3.5-4.5 at 105mm (168mm on full-frame), F5.6 @ 1/125, ISO 800.

A Portrait of my Farther

I took this portrait of my father about a week ago. We were visiting a summer house of my wife's parents and the old window frame together with a soft natural light provided a result I was very happy about. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark II with Canon 70-200 4L at 200mm, F5.6 @ 1/800, ISO 1600.

Wedding Photography Workshop

On July 23rd 2009 I took part in a whole day workshop on wedding and reception photography in Brno given by a professional photographer Jan Branc from Prague. This was a very interesting event, in particular the afternoon exercises with our beautiful models Veronika and Michal were a real fun. Take a look at some of their pictures.

My personal goal on this workshop was to take as many shots as possible in natural light only. Since I got my new Canon 5D mark II I realized that noise in high ISO images is not that much of an issue any more and I am rediscovering the beauty of natural light portraits. I think that I got a couple of great shots of Veronika and Michal. A few more images can be seen here.