Enter Photography: February 2009

Camera-Ready Makeup for Model Photography

Any model, including male, needs to have some makeup when photographing.

The major rule is no shine on the skin. You need to have a matt finish and in order to get it, you have to apply foundation in downwards motion to go with the skin and not against the hair of the skin.

Then female and male models need to use blush.

For female models a classic eye looks great on photos. A neutral tone of different color may be applied.

The only part of the face that requires shine is lips. You can leave your natural color but add a bit of shine.

Also teeth should be as white as possible, so one really must take proper care of his/her teeth on a regular basis.

Hold Your Camera Without Shaking

Neil Creek shows his method of holding a camera to minimize its shaking. It gets especially important when your shutter speed is slow.

You just need to twist your camera a little bit and it will be much steadier. Try to turn one hand one side and the other hand the other side a little bit.

It works well with point and shooet cameras but can be useful with DSLRs too.

How to Take Great Shots and not Snapshots

Rick Sammon explains and gives examples on how you can turn ordinary snapshots into really great shots that you will be proud of.

The first advice is to hike. It means that when you see some subject that you want to take a photo of, you should walk around it looking for an non-standard angle. That way you photograph will not be boring, like 10,000 others already taken of the same subject.

You can also play with the level which you are holding your camera at. Try to move it a bit down or a bit up and you will notice that by doing this simple trick you can avoid so called dead space in your shot.

It is always advizable to think of what you want to achieve and try different approaches. Be as much creative as you can and it will pay you with decent photos.

In one of his examples Rick shows how he managed to turn a dull snapshot into a rather artistic photography. Instead of shooting the subject on the beach straight forward, he just walked on the other side of it to shoot into the sun. He got a dramatic silhouette.

Where to Photograph Children

In this short video you will learn how to find a good place for taking pictures of a child.

Even if you go just outside of your house, you may find lots of opportunities to choose an excellent location for children photography.

First of all a neutral background will help you focus a view's eye on the subject, i.e. the child. In this case we have a non-distracting wall.

You really need to think about bringing something for the child to play with and better if the toys are either his/her favorite or new ones to surprise him or her. What you are looking for is genunine emotions. Try to get a smile on the child's face.

The light can be natural, if it is not too harsh like it happens under direct sun in the middle of the day.

It is a good idea to use a white sheet (placing it simply on the ground) as a reflector to add some light to the subject from below.

You should always be communicating with the child, maintaining his/her attention. Try to fill the frame with your subject and you will be proud of your photos.

Hollywood Photo Lighting Scheme

This tutorial comes in black and white. It was done on purpose, because in black and white one can see more clearly the effect of using a particular lighting scheme.

This lighting reminds those old Hollywood movies from 40s and 50s of the last century.

No softboxes or flashes are used in this scheme - just plain lights.

First of all we have two lights above the model to light her hair. Then there is a key light beaming from a side slightly above and a fill light at a bit below her face level. We also light the background.

The fill light should not be placed high as in that case there will be no spacle in her eyes.

You can see in this video that by switching various lights on and off what effect it makes on the model. For instance one can do without the fill light but in that case the shadows on the model's face will be harsh. To soften these shadows we have to use a fill light. However, if you need a more dramatic effect (a mean look of her face), then you can turn the fill light off.

Strip Lighting Lesson

In this video tutorial photographer Scott Smith explains and shows how he uses strip soft box for shooting in black&wite and color.

The strip soft box beams quite narrow light at the model and therefore you have to always watch carefully if her/his head is lighted.

Scott uses black background in order to emphasize the light coming from the strip box, as black eats all the light that reaches the background and does not reflect it.

His camera settings are 1/250, f8 and ISO 100.

The strip soft box he is using has the lamp reflected from the box, unlike most other models which have the lamp pointing to the subject. It gives even softer effect.

The light from a narrow soft box looks very dramatic and you can achieve great results with your model using this equipment.

Cheap Lighting Solution

Erin Manning, a professional photographer, shows in this short video lesson how she uses lighting gear when shooting in sunshine weather. One way to light your subject is to reflect the sun light with a professional reflector that can be quite expensive. Its one side is silver and the other one is gold.

If you are on a budget and cannot shell out for buying professional photo accessories, Erin Manning suggests that you visit your local store and get one of car reflectors that you normally use to protect your car from sunshine. They also are double sided (gold and silver) and they serve just as well as professional reflectors but cost a lot less. By the way, they usually come folded and it makes another advantage of
using them in the field.

How to use an external flash and avoid mistakes

It is a guide for beginers who want to learn how to use flash units and get better results. It explains synchronisation issue and what can happen if the synchro speed is too fast.

It also warns you from bouncing your flash from a color ceiling or wall (that is of course if you shoot in jpeg and cannot correct the white balance in post processing).

How to hold your camera tip from a pro

Famous photographer Joe McNally (he writes a very interesting blog, by the way) demonstrates in this 7 minute video how he holds his camera in oder to capute sharper images at slower shutter speeds.

He explains and shows the approach that works for him and the mistakes you can avoid.

Joe McNally is an internationally acclaimed American photographer and long-time photojournalist.

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