Low Light & Fast lenses
Dick Stolley who many consider to be Time-Life’s best Managing Editor once told People magazine’s photographers that a successful image elicited a “Gasp Factor” from the viewer. Stolley said if the image stopped the reader, forced them to take a second look at it, read the story’s headline, and then perhaps the rest of the story, the photograph passed his test. Often the best photographs—those “Gasp Factor” ones—are made under less...
Working with Backlighting for Outdoor Portraits
The ingredients for making great portraits are easy to find: You need a subject, a camera, and some light but like any good chef it’s how they’re prepared that goes into cooking up a delicious portrait. When talking about portraiture with amateur or aspiring pro photographers, they often tell me they want to do a better job but don’t have studios or expensive lighting equipment. Let’s not worry about where to make portraits because we...
Photographing Models on the Runway
Runway photography is more like shooting sports that studio fashion. Leggy supermodels move fast and like a wedding shooter capturing a bride coming down the aisle with her father, you only get one chance. Some fashion shows permit flash but many others do not. On the upside, some runways are brightly lit with tungsten lighting for TV, not still cameras. Local venues vary greatly in configuration, where you can stand, and many allow...
Want to Write a Photo Book?
Most photographers dream of accomplishing two things in publishing: The first is being featured in National Geographic or maybe Playboy and the second is showcasing their photography in a book. I can’t help you with that first goal but can with the second. So why do people write photo books? They do it to become famous, to help people, and become rich and the proportion for aspect depends on the writer. Unless you are very, very...
