How to look more professional #1

How can you come across as a more professional looking photographer?

Well it goes without saying that you will spend years perfecting your technique and sharpening your artistic insincts.

You will produce a portfolio of work you can take pride in and will prove yourself as reliable in the field time and again. Of course all of that is a given, but what other easy steps can you take to give yourself the look of a pro?

Try carrying a light meter! And if you want to really push the boat out you could take the time to learn how to use it. (The leather jacket look is optional by the way.)

B is backlighting G is for Glass...

Glass. It's transparent! It's really reflective! It can be very difficult to photograph pleasingly.

Have a search online and you will find many solutions and methods of dealing with photographing glass.

For me the secret was,is and always will be backlighting.

The back lighting you use can take several forms. One very useful method to achieve a high key look is to use a translucent light colored background and shine a light through this. You then shoot from the opposite side and your light source doubles up as your background. This method should solve a lot of your classic glass lighting problems and should produce some definition around the edge of your subject.

If you want a dark background you can use a similar lighting set up by setting up your light high and above your background lighting back through the glass and toward your camera.

Another vital element in this kind of photography is the size of your light source. It may not always be true but when it comes to lighting size really does matter. For glass you really want to have a large light source, it can be anything, a soft box or window light are both very good bets.

As I say there are lots of very complex and intricate ways of lighting glass and solving the various issues it causes but almost every single one starts putting your light source behind the subject.

If you want to learn more about it you could do a lot worse than read Light Science and Magic by Fil Hunter,Steven Biver and Paul Fuqua. It's not the lightest or easiest of reads but it will tech you to light glass (and just about anything else you could possibly imagine.)

The Old Over Under...

Or as it is sometimes called clam shell lighting. This lighting set up is a great starting point if you are looking for a classic beauty lighting.

It is also very simple to achieve.

As both of this set up's names suggest you use two light sources, one positioned high one positioned low, but both very close to your subject. If in your mind you think of making an open "clam shell" shape with your two lights with your subject at the open end and you and your camera at the closed end.

When it comes to what type of lights to use you will ideally have a couple of soft boxes for this but in a jam you can use any nice heavily diffused source. Something like a shoot though umbrella will do a decent job, you can always diffuse this further by throwing an extra white sheet over it.

The higher of the two lights needs to be dominant in terms of size and power, with the lower light acting as a fill. The whole idea of this to produce a very soft and flattering light (this is why we position the lights nice and close).

As I variation I regularly use a reflector as the lower fill light instead of a smaller soft box and still get good results.

When A Bad Picture Becomes A Good Picture

This was a difficult old night. Anyone who has ever shot sport under flood lights will be all to familiar with just how difficult it is to get something sharp and usuable.

A lot of my photographs were coming out like the one above, a bit on the muddy and noisy side, both a result of a very high ISO (film speed). On this particular evening I believe we were up somewhere in the region of 6400.

So, what to do? Time to pack up? Personally I don't recommend it. I would always recommend persevering and taking as many images as you possibly can. The elements and the odds may be against you but sometimes even a bad picture comes good.

The player with the ball above is Robin Sowden-Taylor, 8 times capped for Wales and former Cardiff Blues captain. To many peoples surprise within a few weeks of this match Sowden-Taylor would announce his retirement from professional rugby. I didn't know it at the time but this match would be his last for the Newport Gwent Dragons.

Upon finding out the news I checked my archive and dug out the photograph above. It may be far from the finest technical shot you will ever come across but in light of Robin's retirement it is now a little time capsule of an image. A fraction of a second that can tell a much bigger story. For me when it comes to photography that's the name of the game.

My Simplified Technique For Aperture Selection

Often one of the most daunting things you are faced with once you start using a camera in the less automated or program modes is the number of selections that you are faced with before you even take a shot. Which f stop? Shutter speed? ISO (film speed)?This sheer number of options can be enough to drive you back to the safety of auto mode. To combat this I have devised a system to simplify the whole process.

Say for example we are shooting a wedding, there are huge amount of things going on and action that you have to capture so you want technical decisions to be made swiftly and instinctively so that you are free to concentrate on the composition of your images and the posing of your subjects (amongst the million other things you have to do).That’s where this system comes in, which you can use rigidly or just as a starting point for when you are working out what settings to use.

Firstly we are going to be using the camera in aperture priority mode so that we are responsible for telling the camera what f stop to use and the camera will work out the necessary shutter speed for the exposure from there. The lens that you are using will have an effect on the number of different apertures you can use but for this example let’s say that the largest aperture available to you is f2.8 (remember the reverse logic with f numbers the lower the number the larger the aperture).

So back to the wedding we are shooting. We are going to be photographing the ceremony inside a dimly lit church and don’t want to be intrusive with the use of a flash (plus the minister has already told us your not allowed to use one). So you are going to need to make the most of the available light in the church. The first step towards this is opening up your lens to allow as much light in as possible, that means the biggest aperture (smallest f number) possible. So in this case that would be f2.8. This alone however won’t be enough to give you acceptable results in a particularly dark location as the resulting shutter speed will be too long and through a combination of camera shake and your subjects moving your photographs will look far from great. To combat this the next thing we look at is our choice of ISO. If you are lucky enough to own a fairly modern digital camera you will find that you can get excellent results at high ISO settings so go ahead and push your ISO up to 800,1000 or if the church you are in is particularly gloomy 1250 until you shutter speed is fast enough to give you nice sharp results.

What is fast enough in terms of shutter speed? It will vary from photographer to photographer depending on your ability to hold the camera steady but as a general rule of thumb you don’t want a shutter speed value below the value of the focal distance your lens is set at. As an example if you are shooting with the lens at 50mm you will want to have at the very least a shutter speed of a 50th of a second. This however is a bare minimum. The more wriggle room you can buy the better so try and get closer to 100th of a second if you can. Of course the further you are zooming, say 200mm, then the quicker your shutter speed needs to get. At least a 200thof a second or quicker.

So the ceremony is in the bag and it’s back outside to shoot candid’s of the bride and groom with their guests. What settings should we use? Firstly, we no longer problems with low light as we are now outdoors so the ISO can come back down to a more standard 200 or 400 and we are no longer tied to using the camera at its maximum aperture as we now have plenty of light at our disposal. We are able to choose our f stop for artistic and stylistic reasons, which is where it can start to get tricky. Not so with this system, in fact it’s very simple. Set yourcamera to f4 and shoot away. This aperture should allow plenty of light in to keep your photographs beautifully sharp and is also where your f2.8 zoom lens (if that is what you’re using) will be at its sharpest.

Now it’s time to shoot the groups outside the venue. What to do with the aperture? It will depend on the size of the groups but the main thing you want to achieve will be a greater depth of field so that everyone from the front to the back of the group is in sharp focus.My simple answer to this is to double the f number you are using so jump from f4 to f8 and that should do it.

Your about to head off from the church to the reception but before you go you want to take a shot of the church and the lovely trees that surround it and the mountains behind in the distance. Effectively we are dealing with a landscape shot where there is a greater need again for plenty of depth of field giving us a sharp image from front to back. To achieve this I would again double my f number to give me f16. Now depending on how bright the day is you may want to consider using a tripod for this or if you don’t have one pushing up your ISO so that the shot isn’t spoilt by camera shake or movement.

In total that is four different f numbers that we have used for a whole host of situations.
F2.8
F4
F8
F16
I believe that just by using these 4 aperture settings you should be able to shoot almost any situation that you will come across.

The examples I described earlier are just that, examples of when you would use certain settings. The system can be applied to any type of photographic assignment, f2.8 will be your go to aperture in any number of indoor locations where light is at a premium. Just as you will go for f16 when you require plenty of depth of field to capture a larger scene.As with almost any photographic rule (or loose set of guidelines) this one can be broken to great effect.

The equipment that you are using may affect the options available to you slightly. If for example the lens you use won’t go to f2.8 substitute your lens’ largest aperture (lowest f number) for f2.8 in the example above. From there you can then use the other stops as described.

So from the whole myriad of options we have open to us we have managed to simplify our choices allowing us to concentrate on other things. Our choices of what settings to use can become quick, efficient and instinctive.As I mentioned you can use this system rigidly or just a starting point to get you into the ball park before you tweak the settings to what you desire.

Welcome To The Photo Shed

Ever since its inception photography has been about the sharing of knowledge and technique. Valuable advice is passed from generation to generation and despite the great leaps that technology has taken in recent years this spirit of sharing experience remains.It is in this spirit that I welcome you to The Photo Shed. A place where I hope we can share stories, tips and ideas that may help us improve our photography.Everyone is welcome at “The Shed” regardless of what level of photography they are at. Whether you are planning on buying your first camera or are a pro with 30 years experience in the field you are both equally welcome and important to what we hope to achieve here.

As a photographer I shoot a variety of subjects and this will be reflected in the various photographic disciplines that will be discussed here. We will cover a lot in terms of people photography weather it’s studio based shoots, location portraits or weddings. One of my great passions is sports photography and you will also find this discussed at length in these pages.Aside from my own posts here you will find guest writers sharing their expertise in a given field.

It’s not only technique that you will find here. I hope to include in equal measure more candid stories of day’s (both good and bad) in the field. You know like that bit in Jaws where the three men on the boat are comparing scars? It will be like that, except with photographic scars, I’ve never had a Moray Eel bite right through my wetsuit. Not yet anyway.So once again welcome to The Shed grab yourself a beer and a seat and let’s get started...