Posts Tagged ‘photo shoot’

6 Bad Photos & What I Learned from Them

tagged in Featured, Photography

Jun 1 2010

*early morning dreams*A little good, before I present all the bad…

I’m doing a bit of digital spring cleaning today, starting with my library of photos in Lightroom. During my cleaning, I noticed all the crummy photos I’ve taken over the last few years. After feeling mildly embarrassed, I realized how much I’ve actually learned about photography, simply from taking bad photos.

So, I’m going to do something that I’ve never done, share some of my worst photos (eek) and the lessons I learned from them.

1. Learn to focus your camera manually.

Both focus and composition were not my friend in this picture.

Focusing is one of the most basic photography skills, yet it seems to be the most difficult to master. When I started I relied completely on Auto Focus, which rarely, if ever, worked in low light and back lit situations.

Because of this dependance I spent most of my time during shoots waiting for my camera to grab focus, then actually taking shots. Since I’ve been shooting a lot more video with the 5DMKII, I’ve had to master manual focus. Now, I find my eye is a lot more reliable than auto focus.

2. Learn to expose your pictures correctly.


Ouch, this photo is blinding me!

Nothing you do in post will save an overexposed picture. You cannot recover information that isn’t there to start with, so turn on your histogram and watch out for “blinkies”. Highlight warning flashes on your histogram let you know which parts of your photo are overexposed.

This is particularly useful when you are outside on a sunny day and can’t see your camera’s LCD screen very well. Look in your camera manual for Highlight warning and it should tell you how to set this feature up on your camera.

3. Don’t crop off body parts.

I haz no fingurz!

This would be a good photo except for her missing fingers and elbow… Doh! In going through my old shots, I noticed many shots where I cropped out a lovely model’s foot, chin, arm, or leg. Even your most creative editing job will not save a photo of  model with a missing chin.

(more…)

35 Comments »

How to Take Better Portraits

tagged in Featured, Photography

Nov 9 2009

Photography by Lisa Bettany

Whether you are snapping pictures of your cat, daughter or a glamorous super model the key feature in any portrait is the eyes.

1. Set your Aperture at f/2.0-5.0.
This will give your portrait a nice depth of field with the eyes in focus and falling off around the hair line. If you are shooting in natural light your f-stop will be dictated by how much light you have. Just watch that if you decrease your aperture to < f/2.0 that you are able to get both eyes in focus which is tricky if your subject isn’t straight on.

2. Focus on the middle of the pupil.
It’s very easy to catch focus on the brow or eyelashes. If you can’t grab focus on the eyes, you need more light. Need help trouble shooting light? I’ve got a post about that!

3. Ask your subject to tilt their head down.
This makes the eyes look bigger and is a more flattering angle than an up-the-nose angle. If you can see nose hair, you need to find a better angle. Subjects usually respond to a little direction like, “Tilt your chin down”. Then,  guide them into the most flattering position for their face.

4. Shoot from above.
Again this makes eyes look bigger and faces look thinner. If your subject is taller than you, find a curb or a step. Also, I suggest that you head to IKEA and grab a small step stool for $10. I keep one in the back of my truck, so I always have it on hand for shoots.

5. Light the face with soft, even light.
Harsh light is bad. Shadows are worse. Dappled light is the worst. So, give your subject some lovely soft, even light. They will look better and you won’t have to try to correct your light in post. If you are shooting outside, try to shoot either in the morning or in the late afternoon when the light is soft. If you have some cloud cover then you might be able to shoot anytime as long as there is enough light.

Behind the scenes: AJ shoot

One thing you should purchase is a collapsible reflector. I use a 22″ circular 5 -in-1 reflector. It’s reversible covers give you the option to reflect with silver, gold, white or block light with black. Brand isn’t really important just go to any photography store and buy the cheapest one. If you are financially challenged at the moment, go to your local craft store and buy two large foam core boards in white for about $2. These work great as reflectors.

If you have any tips or questions, head to the comments!

26 Comments »

Behind the Scenes: Promo shoot with Kylee Epp

tagged in Featured, Photography

Sep 7 2008

Kylee Epp Promo Shot
Photo by Redpilot Media: Ryland Haggis and Lisa Bettany

We were chasing magic hour trying to capture soft, sultry backlit promo shots for musician, Kylee Epp. We sat there waiting for the sun to peek through a metal staircase just behind Kylee’s head, illuminating her hair and giving the photo a kiss of lens flare.

When the sun hit it’s mark, we had about 5 minutes to capture the perfect shot. Man, is magic hour a stressful time for photographers. I wait everyday for it, because honestly the light quality you get during magic hour (the hour before sunset) is unprecedented. Golden and warm and soft and yum! But, you have to be quick because magic hour melts fasta’ than budda on popcorn.

Some technical details of the shoot for all you Strobist photogeeks: We were shooting with the Canon Xti and the 85mm f/1.8 & the 50mm f/1.4 In order to create soft, warm light on her face we used Pocket Wizards (wireless radio transmitters) to trigger the 430EX with a 1/4 CTO gel at 1/4 power through a large shoot-through umbrella about 2ft (60cm) from her face.

kylee's shoot umbrella

If you listen to TWiP, you’ve probably heard Scott Bourne say this a few times: “The bigger the light source is and the closer to the subject the light is the softer the light will be.” He’s totally on it, so remember this rule. It’s golden.

Once we lost the light in the first location we booked it to Jericho Beach to catch some sexy sunset shots.

Kylee Promo shot Jericho Beach

Ryland (the guy in charge of Redpilot Media) and I switched off taking shots and directing the shoot. It was cool to see the shots that resulted from two photographer’s combined creativity.

Ry taking shots of Kylee

Plus, somebody needed to be in charge of the umbrella and flash as it was super windy. Earlier in the shoot, we totally bent this umbrella, when a gust of wind sent it crashing down on Kylee’s head. I told her that she was now one step closer to becoming a model. After all, you can’t really call yourself a model until you’ve had at least one piece of equipment fall on you or, like, fainted during a shoot cuz you haven’t eaten in like, a week.

Note to self: Invest in some sandbags or weights to keep light stands from on models. Keep granola bars in bag to feed starving models before they faint.

As we were losing light we roped in one of Kylee’s friends to hold a third 430EX with 1/4 CTO flash for a warm edge light. As you can tell, she was lovin’ every minute of it. I think she’s has future camera assistant written all over her face. o_0

Future camera assistant in the making

Thanks for all your great Summertime shots! I’m really enjoying all your awesome entries for my first photo comp. If you haven’t already submitted something, join the Mostly Photos Comp group on Flickr and show us your best summer shot. I also encourage you to go look at other people’s shots and comment and discuss and inspire each other!

14 Comments »