Scene lighting technique.

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Nikon D800 f7.1 1/8th ISO100

Good morning, 

Id like to share with you a lighting technique that you can use to light a scene, even when working on your own. 

The above image consists of 21 images, all shot and lit by myself, and i am even in the image, to add some interest. 

I will show you, how i take multiple images, all lit with off camera flash, and then the process i take in photoshop.

Here you can see me using an off camera flash head on a pole, with the trigger in my right hand firing off the flash and camera shutter remotely. 

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Click on image to enlarge.

The final image is composed of 21 frames. 

The camera was mounted on a tripod. White balance taken off auto, manual settings, and with me using back button focusing on the camera, i know when i press the remote, the camera will not try and focus, making all the images consistent. 

Quick tip, 

Like when making panos, my first image is a large image of me, so i can find the set easily in bridge. 

Also this is a great way to make sure that the flash and camera shutter both fire correctly. 

As when using pocket wizards as the remote, the flash PW has to be set to a channel higher and some times i forget this, and so it is always a good idea to test everything before getting started and walking far into the scene. 

Using bridge i select all the images that i want to use, and from here you can easily load them into photoshop as a single document with 21 layers. 

Now turn off all layers, and starting from the bottom layer i work my way up through the stack, turning on, one layer at a time, changing the blend mode to Lighten. 

With the blend mode on lighten, the flash light will show. 

Also you will see indicated in this image the hot spot of the flash is in the image. This is easy to mask out. Also i remain in the image by some strange artefacts, just simply mask these out. 

After some cleaning and tweaking here is the before and after image.

The before being unlit. 

It is a subtle difference, but one i find takes your images to that next level. 

If you have any questions, feel free to comment and i hope to help. 

Thanks

Lee

Composite with a snow machine in the garden.

   Nikon D800 f10 1/125th ISO 100

Good morning, hope that you had a good weekend.

This was the set up, pretty straight forward really. Two light sources, both camera left. The elinchrom ranger in a large octa positioned in front of myself, so the light was feathered and soft.

with a bare elinchrom quadra behind back lighting the snow.

With a snow machine you can see on the left of the image.

The image was shot with grey paper background intentionally to aid in the photoshop work afterwards.

Image set up and execution around 45 mins, and all photoshop work an hour and half.

Some times these images can take a lot more, but having the final goal in your mind and through experience you can achieve that goal much quicker and have a nicer final product.

  Nikon D800 f10 1/125th ISO 100

A Brett Harkness training course.

Recently i attended a Flash lighting training course ran by the talented Brett Harkness. 

I throughly enjoyed myself and walked away with a head full of gold and things to try out to my own images. Here is the

training website

There are heaps of amazing courses to choose from, i can see where a lot of my future pay cheques are going.

Brett's bio -

"I have been a professional photographer in the uk now for over 10 years, previously working in the USA in Miami as a cruise ship photographer. In my eyes I am a photographer. I don't see it as a job, but who I am. I could be seen as the "go to" guy for all things people! I love to take photographs; whether it is a wedding, family shoot, commercial or travel assignment, fashion campaign or whilst teaching on one of our many courses."

I booked onto this course as i was blown away by Brett's images, if you want to be the best, then you learn from the best. 

There are so many tutors out there at the moment, who are offering high-end wedding training, and they have never done a high-end wedding -

Where as Brett does day in- day out... 

-The following images were taken on a course, Lighting positions, models, outfits, locations all chose by Brett and his team. -

Stage Writer. Jessica Luxembourg.

I was asked recently to do some portraiture head shots and promo shots for a fantastic stage / screen writer actress Jessica Luxembourg.

With having a little bit of notice with this shoot, i wanted to set it, in a relevant location.

I came up with the idea of having books in the back ground and so set about trying to find a willing bookshop.

I thought the best places to try would be small independently run stores, and so the search began...

They are becoming harder and harder to find. Even this store will be closed at the end of the month.

I think due to the Internet, people do not seem to visit these places any more. Even i am very guilty of this. As it is far to easy to order books from say Amazon or if going to a store we head to Waterstones as they have a huge collection of items. It is a great shame with the changing world the "small business" has an almost impossible fight to remain in the game. 

This was shot in the book castle over in Dunstable,

A big thanks to the ladies who run the shop, They were great and very friendly, with out their help i do not think i would of been able to achieve my goal and so would of had to resort with another back drop.

Biography of Jessica Luxembourg

Jessica Luxembourg is an award-winning writer

(International Student Playscript Competition, Arc Productions sponsorship, Time Out DVious Shorts Award)

Whose work has been performed at venues including the Hackney Empire,

the Soho Theatre and the Pleasance Courtyard.

Her short film "Phil's Job" was produced by Blaze, The Trail with Nick Rowe (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels)

in the title role and screened at the Cannes, Melbourne and Raindance film festivals. Jessica is a graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, and of Cambridge University.

Jessica's plays include:

Denver, Contact Theatre, Manchester (2006);

Babel Junction, Hackney Empire (2006);

The Devil's Own Goldfish Scam, Soho Theatre (2003);

Insane Jane, Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, transferred to Soho Theatre (2003);

Reflecting Flesh, UEA Studio Theatre (2001);

Losing Track, UEA Studio Theatre (2001);

and Craze, UEA Studio Theatre (2000).

Her short films include: Phil's Job, Cannes, Raindance and Melbourne film festivals (2001).

Attend 1st Photography course on outdoor flash lighting.

I have recently been hooking up with Phil over at

Melen Studios

Phil was running an outdoor flash lighting course and so had to attend.

I have been a fan of flash photography, but just lack the knowledge how to use it properly. So a course was right up my street to push and progress my photography.

I would strongly recommend

courses

ran by these guys-

a day outside with a load of cool down to earth people being creative sounds more like fun to me rather then a course.

Here are a few images from the day..

New Bar Design by 4orm ltd Design.

Here are a few images taken for the guys over at 4orm.ltd.

They do the designs for the top bars and night clubs in and around London.

This Bar is situated in Notting Hill.