Saving the World One Pixel at a Time

You’ve heard me say it before but I still think that client communications is the most important aspect of portraiture. That dialog begins with the initial contact and then moves through all of the communications that happen during a session but to make the best possible portrait, you should  start before a subject arrive at your studio or location. Offering a few simple tips beforehand to subjects can make their session go better and help them enjoy the portraits produced during of the session, which then, hopefully, translates into higher sales.

1/125 sec at f/5.6 and ISO 100

One of the most important things I always (and I mean always) suggest is that the subject wear solid colors. No prints, plaid, and especially checks, unless I’m going for some kind of retro look. Nothing detracts from a subject’s face more than clothes covered in busy patterns and prints. I tell clients that the time to wear these kinds of clothes is for fun, not during a portrait session when the emphasis should be on the their face.

But this is real life isn’t it? And things don’t always go as planned. Although you might prefer that a portrait subject bring solid colored clothing to a shoot, that doesn’t always happen out here in the real world, so for the portrait at right, I got in close and suggested this hands-on-face pose that accentuated this subject’s smile.

1/125 sec at f/5.6 and ISO 100

Lighting for the portait: A Flashpoint II 620M monolight with 64-inch FlashPoint umbrella is set up as the main light with another Flashpoint monolight with a 28 x 28-inch PZ Softbox used as a sidelight (at camera left) and slightly to the rear of the subject. Exposure with Canon EOS 5D with EF 85mm f/1.8 USM lens.

Copping tightly helped the portrait somewhat but it won’t always work to minimize the busy pattern of a subjects clothing, so I switched the Canon EOS 5D into Monochrome mode and tried a complete different pose (left) creating a totally different look but using the almost identical lighting setup. It’s not a prefect solution but it is one possible solution, when a session doesn’t quite go as planned.

Back in the film days, there were many different ways that you could capture images. You could shoot color slide film with lots of saturation or choose black and white film that would let you create an entirely different version of the same photograph. To your eyes the original scene might look the same but your interpretation would vary based on the kind of film you decided to load into the camera. Nowadays, most digital SLRs offer monochrome modes and some even offer an entire palette of color toning that you can apply and while you can always make adjustments after the fact using Adobe Photoshop or your favorite digital imaging software, I’d like to give you a few reasons why direct monochrome capture may be a good idea for some glamour shooters

Setup with Photoflex Triton

Aesthetics: Sometimes too much color confuses the viewer and takes the focus away from the real subject of the photograph. Shooting directly in black and white impacts how you see while making the images and focuses that vision and lets you show your model what you’re trying to do. You don’t have to explain that you will convert the shot into monochrome; it’s already there in black and white!

1/125 sec at f/10 and ISO 100

Workflow: There are many ways to use software and Photoshop-compatible plug-ins to produce great looking black and white images from color files and I even wrote a book about it called Digital Monochrome Special Effects but if you want to make prints on-site using a PictBridge-based printer or drop your memory cards off at a local Target of Wal-Mart, capturing the file in black and white saves time.

Feedback: Perhaps the best reason to shoot in monochrome is the feedback you—and the model—get by looking at a black and white image on the LCD screen. One of my favorite tricks is to shoot RAW+JPEG, which Monochrome selected. This produces two files: A color RAW file and a black and white JPEG that’s just used for feedback during the shoot. Depending on what you do with the final image, you might find it easier to retouch the color file than the black and white one but everybody’s workflow is different so it’s best to do what works for you.

That’s not to say that the best way to capture monochrome glamour images is  in camera, far from it. It’s just another tool that I use for creating monochrome images and you need to select the one that works best for any given glamour shoot, so ultimately it’s your call.

The following images were captured while I was making photographs for my book “Complete Guide to Digital Infrared Photography”  that’s available at your favorite bookseller and Amazon.com. While I used many different kinds of cameras, including Canon and Olympus, to capture IR images for the book these examples were made using a Pentax K100D digital SLR.

This photograph (left) was just one of a few images that I was able to make before the wind picked up and wiped the reflection from the lake. Photo was made with a Pentax K100D and SMC P-DA 50-200mm f/4.0-5.6 ED lens at 80mm and mounted on a solid tripod. Exposure in Manual Mode was one-half second at f/9.5 at ISO 800. Filter used was the Singh-Ray I-Ray Infrared Filter. ©2011 Joe Farace

With the proper filter you can capture near infrared images such as this one (below) that was made near Arches National Park. Exposure was one second at f/9.5 at ISO 800 with the camera and SMC P-DA 50-200mm F4-5.6 ED lens mounted on a steady Titltall tripod. Image was converted to monochrome in-camera—but not at time of capture—using the Black & White Digital Filter found in the K100D’s Playback menu ©2011 Joe Farace

The Pentax K100D has hidden capabilities to capture monochrome Infrared photographs; all you need is the right filter to unlock it. The photo (right) was made in Manual mode with an exposure of one second at f/9.5 at ISO 800. The camera was on a tripod. These long exposures are required because IR filters are almost black so they filter all visible light, allowing only invisible (IR) light to pass through. Filter was a Singh-Ray I-Ray. The initial image as captured has an overall magenta cast, so the first step is to it turn it into Monochrome using Photoshop’s Desaturate (Image > Adjustments > Desaturate) command. After that a little contrast boost will do it. If you want to get fancy, as I did with this image, you can create an Adjustment Layer-Curves and use it to tweak parts of the image’s contrast curve. ©2012 Joe Farace

EOS 5D, 1/160 sec at f/6.3 and ISO 400

There is much more to black and white photography than simply an absence of color. Maybe I wouldn’t feel this way if the first photographs had been made in full color,but that didn’t happen and, like many photographers, I grew up admiring the works of W. Eugene Smith and other black and white photojournalists who photographed people at work, play, or just being themselves. As a creative medium, traditionalists may call it “monochrome” and digital imagers may prefer “grayscale,” but it’s still black and white to me.

Black and white is a wonderful media for making portraits because the lack of color immediately simplifies the image, causing you to focus on the real subject of the photograph instead of their clothing or surroundings. Sometimes the nature of the portrait subject demands that the image be photographed in black and white. Arnold Newman’s portrait of composer Igor Stravinsky could never have been made in color and have the same impact that is has as a monochrome image.

There are also the trendy aspects associated with creating images in black and white. MTV, motion pictures and fashion magazines periodically “rediscover” black and white as a way to reproduce photographs that are different from what’s currently being shown. Right now, many professional photographers are telling me that they’re seeing a higher than normal demand for black and white portraits than previously was the case. Individual and family portrait purchases like these are driven by these same trends.

While you could always use real color filters on your camera to archive the same effects there are major advantages of using digital filters: While most in-camera metering systems automatically take “filter factors” (See “Filter Factor”) into consideration, you still have to look through and compose through a colored filter whose factor might range from three and five. In addition, a purely digital solution is an easier one to live because the exposure for no filter is identical to one with the dark red filter.

Tip: Filter Factor: In the world of traditional photography, the light loss caused by a filter’s absorption and color density is expressed as a filter factor. A 2X factor means the exposure should be increased by one stop, 3X means one and one-half stops, etc. When using several filters at once, filter factors, aren’t added together but instead are multiplied reducing depth of field or slowing shutter speeds.

Today I want to introduce you to one of my favorite photographic subjects: Barns. I was introduced to the idea about 15 years ago by my my old friend, fine arts photographer Bill Craig. Now whenever I see a barn, I start looking for my camera. all images ©2012 Joe Farace

I like to photograph barns—the older the better and as the Colorado landscape has become ever more urbanized, I’ve been forced out onto the eastern prairie in search of old farm structures to capture using film and digital cameras. The above structure was photographed in digital infrared and, in the exception that proves the rule,  is located near my former home. Today that barn is surrounded by fences and all of it’s outbuilding have been demolished.

When shooting my series of barn photographs I keep a few internal rules that keep me put of trouble.

Rule number 1 to always ask permission before making a photograph and don’t just walk onto someone’s private property  as if you own it. Look for “No Trespassing” signs and honor them if found. You can always make shots like the above from the shoulder of the road, as I did in the below photograph.

Rule number two is follow the press photographers adage of “f/8 and be there” and use the smallest possible lens aperture to get the greatest depth of focus. In photographing landscapes (See “How I Photograph Landscapes“) I like to shoot at the smallest possible apertures, preferring f/11 or smaller. I also like to use a polarizing filter for color photographs or an (in-camera) red filter in direct monochrome capture for black snappy, contrasty images. Remember that the total area of acceptable focus is one-third in front of the (focused on) object and two-thirds behind it. Keeping this rule in mind will help you capture all of the important details in the scene in clear detail.

Rule Number 3. I prefer to use the slowest possible ISO setting and when used with a polarizing filter this combination produces slow shutter speeds so I always keep a tripod in my trunk. Even a car as small as my MINI Cooper has room for a tripod. Using a tripod also slows the pace of photography and I use the extra time to make sure that the composition is exactly the way I want. One of my oldest compositional tricks is to first glance at each corner of frame before snapping the shutter. This eliminates unpleasant surprises—stuff that seemed to come of out nowhere to ruin an image—when I finally look at the image files on my 23-inch widescreen monitor.

Rule Number 4. If someone challenges me or wants to talk, I used to bring prints along to show them what I do. Now the photos are stored on an iPad and I let the person flip through the images while they hold the iPad. Most times when they see that I’m trying to make pictures that they can appreciate, they become friendly and let me make pictures I might not otherwise be able to make. With photography under fire in so many areas, take the time to make a friend.