Saturday 6 November 2010
London Emigration Fund: H.T Fotography
London Emigration Fund: H.T Fotography: "Jana and I would like to say an enormous thank you to H.T. Fotography for their generosity. We are so thankful to have you supporting us! Ev..."
Friday 24 September 2010
Can We Have Some More Powder Please?
Pictures from shoot in studio
Model Jana
Make-Up: Dee - Makeup 4 Art
Photographer: Henrik
Equipment : Canon 50D
Focal Length : 52mm
Aperture : F9
ISO : 100
Shutter speed : 1/160
Some times as a photographer we get so caught up in our craft of lighting, shooting, light placement, shutter speeds, aperture etc, that we can loose focus on some of the most important things. These important things can include things like the MODEL. I have noticed that when we start shooting one of the things that really help the confidence of a model is good make up and good hair. The rest of the parts that make the shoot are clothing selection from a models side. Get good hair and makeup and a killer dress even if the model lacks a bit of confidence normally they will feel confident and you the photographer will get great shots. Hair is important but even that can be fiddled in studio with some clips a hair straightener and hairspray in a pinch. Good makeup done by the Models themselves is a rarity. The model will do make up the way they feel is right and most times for the occasion as in shoot they will be wrong. Put good makeup on a good model you will have a fantastic combination. Just don't mess up the photography. I find giving the Make-up artist a detailed brief beforehand is a good way to start the ball of creativity rolling. Trust the make-up artist they are good at what they do. Hey they trust you to get good shots even more if it is a time for CD type thing.
here is a head and shoulders of our Model Jana. The make-up is pleasing not over the top and enhances our models face not detracts from it. Someone said to me the mark of good make-up should be when someone comments on how beautiful the subject looks today and not how wonderful the make up looks. The make-up should add not take attention away from the model. Little different if you doing one one of those over the top type shoots.On to the technical bits
We did this shoot in studio. OK First off the top shot very little has been done to this photo. I shot that photo using 3 lights. One in the suitcase one camera left and a background light gelled blue.
The flash in the suit case is a Canon 580exII speedlite set at 16th power and gelled Orange. It was triggered using a pocket wizard. It had no diffusion on it. The background light was a 200ws flash that was set at about 1/2 power and there was a 500ws flash in a large soft-box about 1metre away from the suit case set to about 30% power just to help define the outside of suit case. A friend asked me why i did not light the shoes I felt it would have distracted from the face which I felt was the main focus. Maybe I will try it both ways next time. As for Post well that was simple the gel was orange so pushed the white balance into the cool to correct for the orange. The background went even more blue and added a little bit of vignette just to seal the deal.
A big thanks to Dee from Make-up 4 Art these photos would not have looked as good with out her. If you are looking for a good professional and friendly make-up artist in the greater Durban area Dee I can Highly Recommend. Check out her Website here
Thats it from me
Tuesday 4 May 2010
Food mmMMMMmm
Food
I like food. I really love good food. In another life I may have even been a restaurant critic. Creating things is something that I enjoy doing and I do that with the photography. Creating good food is not my calling but eating it is. I do have a friend though that is really good at creating really good food. His name is Noel and he is the head chef at a real nice restaurant here in SA in a suburb called Westville. The restaurant name is Salute they do Italian style food.
I like new projects and thought I would try do a bit of food photography. Who better to help me with my food project than Noel. Noel is as passionate about his food as I am about my photography. Noel studied to be a chef and is gaining some wonderful recognition and has been in the local papers a few times recently. The restaurant critics find his food wonderful. An interesting fact abut Noel his creativity is not just in food. He is the vocalist in a band called Cynical Origin just in case you are wondering they are a Metal band - Rock on. One of the things a chef will learn at chef school is the client must eat with their eyes first. So to do this the chefs are taught about colours and presentation. Noel is damn good at presentation - the part that's really important to photograph.
Now photography is all about truth and reality. Yea Right. Truth about food photography is this. Unless you are selling the food directly in the photograph you can do anything you want. Fast food outlets need to be photographing real food for their menus. In other words if it is a burger with onions etc on the menu then the photo had to be taken of actual beef pattie and real onions. But who said it has to be a cooked pattie or onions without food colouring. If the food on the menu looks really good is the lawful representation then chances are if you had to pick up that exact burger that was photographed on that menu and took a bite you would get a mouth full of tooth picks, chemicals and raw meat and if you are really lucky you wont die.
Real food is hard to get looking really good unless you name is Noel. I decided a while back that real food is what I would like to photograph. I did a bit of reading on how food stylists do the food you will see in publications etc. I may look good but that's it. Most of the food you see in those pictures are not even edible. Seems a bit like cheating to me. Its a little like this "Heres this car I want you to photograph but I don't want you photograph the car you drive away with you must photograph this car with these crazy modifications that we have done that makes it impossible to drive it ever".
The food you see here is real and what you see is as it would be served to the hungry client sitting at the table. Lucky for me as I got to sample one of the dishes. Well did it taste as good as it looked? You better believe it. Since taste-o-vision and smell-o-vision is not widely available yet pictures will have to do.
One thing that I can say working with restaurant staff is use their experience. They know the real deal how long until the next plate to photograph will arrive and what is the right accompaniments to go with the food. Wine, condiments etc. Approach them with a positive attitude and show them some of those pictures they even start coming up with some great ides some you can and some you cant use but get them on you side and it makes you life a lot more simple. Noel was also really accommodating he would ask "what would you like next more height different colours". When this is you first time photographing food seriously having someone helping you by plating the food in a photograph friendly way does really help.
Just remember that the really fancy food photographs you see have been styled by a food stylist. What is a food stylist? you maybe wondering well their job is to get the food looking good that's it. They not interested in the photography. Thats your job. The food stylist will correct something that's showing or not showing on the food. They are not interested in Ive got a hotspot etc. That is partly the reason I wanted to do this shoot. It was to get a bit of experience with how to light the food, looks to go for, background, settings etc. To add context to the food the background is as important as the food.
In these shots the restaurant was open and serving customers so I could not really light the whole place and kick customers out the way. The restaurant sorted out a nice spot away from the rest of the tables. I could work and do what I needed to do with out being disturbed which was nice of them.
The lighting was not overly complex 3 speedlites. 2 set about 45 degrees either side of the camera and one as a background light. The two either side of the camera were in soft boxes. The background light was in some of the pictures fired bare onto a red wall and others through a red glass candle holder. I used the ETTL functions on the flashes and the nice thing about it was I could just dial in a 2:1 ratio between my key and fill flash and done. The bonus is that I can even do it from the camera and I don't even need touch the flashes. The only flash I did need to touch was the background light as it was not the most stable in the round candle holder on the floor. The shutter speed was about 1/200 and the aperture ranged between 2.8 and 7.1. I was using my Canon EF 24-70 F2.8 lens and dialed into my camera a +1 stop on the flash compensation. the reason is the camera will see the white plates as a serious highlight and back the flashes a bit. Post was just a bit of a crop and levels and a touch of vibrance to bring out the lovely rich colours of the food.
There are a few things I will do different in future I will be pulling the table cloth very straight. The other thing is working on getting something cool in the background. When I look at the photographs they are good but Imagine if I could get some of the restaurant and decor in the background. If done properly it would give more interest and context to the food. If I put the food on a bar it would imply a pub lunch or if a forest was in the background it would imply a picnic or or or - as if you could lug this out there. But you get the idea. I am happy with the photos.The food is well represented and looks yummy.
I like food. I really love good food. In another life I may have even been a restaurant critic. Creating things is something that I enjoy doing and I do that with the photography. Creating good food is not my calling but eating it is. I do have a friend though that is really good at creating really good food. His name is Noel and he is the head chef at a real nice restaurant here in SA in a suburb called Westville. The restaurant name is Salute they do Italian style food.
I like new projects and thought I would try do a bit of food photography. Who better to help me with my food project than Noel. Noel is as passionate about his food as I am about my photography. Noel studied to be a chef and is gaining some wonderful recognition and has been in the local papers a few times recently. The restaurant critics find his food wonderful. An interesting fact abut Noel his creativity is not just in food. He is the vocalist in a band called Cynical Origin just in case you are wondering they are a Metal band - Rock on. One of the things a chef will learn at chef school is the client must eat with their eyes first. So to do this the chefs are taught about colours and presentation. Noel is damn good at presentation - the part that's really important to photograph.
Now photography is all about truth and reality. Yea Right. Truth about food photography is this. Unless you are selling the food directly in the photograph you can do anything you want. Fast food outlets need to be photographing real food for their menus. In other words if it is a burger with onions etc on the menu then the photo had to be taken of actual beef pattie and real onions. But who said it has to be a cooked pattie or onions without food colouring. If the food on the menu looks really good is the lawful representation then chances are if you had to pick up that exact burger that was photographed on that menu and took a bite you would get a mouth full of tooth picks, chemicals and raw meat and if you are really lucky you wont die.
Real food is hard to get looking really good unless you name is Noel. I decided a while back that real food is what I would like to photograph. I did a bit of reading on how food stylists do the food you will see in publications etc. I may look good but that's it. Most of the food you see in those pictures are not even edible. Seems a bit like cheating to me. Its a little like this "Heres this car I want you to photograph but I don't want you photograph the car you drive away with you must photograph this car with these crazy modifications that we have done that makes it impossible to drive it ever".
The food you see here is real and what you see is as it would be served to the hungry client sitting at the table. Lucky for me as I got to sample one of the dishes. Well did it taste as good as it looked? You better believe it. Since taste-o-vision and smell-o-vision is not widely available yet pictures will have to do.
One thing that I can say working with restaurant staff is use their experience. They know the real deal how long until the next plate to photograph will arrive and what is the right accompaniments to go with the food. Wine, condiments etc. Approach them with a positive attitude and show them some of those pictures they even start coming up with some great ides some you can and some you cant use but get them on you side and it makes you life a lot more simple. Noel was also really accommodating he would ask "what would you like next more height different colours". When this is you first time photographing food seriously having someone helping you by plating the food in a photograph friendly way does really help.
Just remember that the really fancy food photographs you see have been styled by a food stylist. What is a food stylist? you maybe wondering well their job is to get the food looking good that's it. They not interested in the photography. Thats your job. The food stylist will correct something that's showing or not showing on the food. They are not interested in Ive got a hotspot etc. That is partly the reason I wanted to do this shoot. It was to get a bit of experience with how to light the food, looks to go for, background, settings etc. To add context to the food the background is as important as the food.
In these shots the restaurant was open and serving customers so I could not really light the whole place and kick customers out the way. The restaurant sorted out a nice spot away from the rest of the tables. I could work and do what I needed to do with out being disturbed which was nice of them.
The lighting was not overly complex 3 speedlites. 2 set about 45 degrees either side of the camera and one as a background light. The two either side of the camera were in soft boxes. The background light was in some of the pictures fired bare onto a red wall and others through a red glass candle holder. I used the ETTL functions on the flashes and the nice thing about it was I could just dial in a 2:1 ratio between my key and fill flash and done. The bonus is that I can even do it from the camera and I don't even need touch the flashes. The only flash I did need to touch was the background light as it was not the most stable in the round candle holder on the floor. The shutter speed was about 1/200 and the aperture ranged between 2.8 and 7.1. I was using my Canon EF 24-70 F2.8 lens and dialed into my camera a +1 stop on the flash compensation. the reason is the camera will see the white plates as a serious highlight and back the flashes a bit. Post was just a bit of a crop and levels and a touch of vibrance to bring out the lovely rich colours of the food.
There are a few things I will do different in future I will be pulling the table cloth very straight. The other thing is working on getting something cool in the background. When I look at the photographs they are good but Imagine if I could get some of the restaurant and decor in the background. If done properly it would give more interest and context to the food. If I put the food on a bar it would imply a pub lunch or if a forest was in the background it would imply a picnic or or or - as if you could lug this out there. But you get the idea. I am happy with the photos.The food is well represented and looks yummy.
Wednesday 14 April 2010
Are you staring at me ???
Every once in a while I get asked to shoot some trophies for a company I have been dealing with over the last while. I have updated their images for their product catalog recently. I have also done some shoots of their staff and every once in a while the ever dreaded super shiny trophies shoot. The thing about shooting very reflective trophies or very reflective anything is that they can really go very wrong if one is not careful. Now a company will work very hard to gain recognition for their efforts to meet and satisfy the customer and it no easy feat to get these trophies. Especially since this company is an automotive supply company. The companies that supply the parts to the automotive manufacturers have had to become extra competitive to help keep those automotive companies stay alive. GM has fallen in the United States but in South Africa GM still survives and companies like Smiths Manufacturing try to help by providing cost effective and innovative products to keep GM South Africa selling cars. So to get a trophy is a big big deal and they want show potential clients their achievements. And nothing says we are proud of the award than showing a photo of the trophy complete with reflected photographer and an office behind them. Guess you wondering what is he on about. Right let me explain. Trophies generally are very shiny. So when you photograph them there are two things that will happen. The first is reflections. Basically these things are like mirrors so they reflect everything around them. Second is if you use a flash and everything set to auto you end up with a dark picture and very strange highlights. The reason for that will be when the flash fire it goes to what it knows and the problem is it does not know you are photographing trophies. When the metering pre-flash fires it sees very bright ares and thinks the scene is very bright and when it fires the main flash it will underexpose. So to conclude using auto with a flash gives the reflection of the photographer and a super muddy looking exposure. Just the sort of pictures you want for a presentation to potential clients. OK so maybe not the best idea. So they call me. One thing about corporate work is they are generally on a tight schedule this meant that the trophies needed to be photographed in the offices and reasonably quickly. Also the trophies being the pride and joy of the company taking them to the studio is not always an option. So what now. Hello speedlites. Yes speedlites are always the answer. Only one small problem being a bit of a unplanned job light modifiers were in short supply. To the photocopy machine to liberate the light modifiers from the cruel fate of toner and heaters and rollers. So setup and ready to shoot off I went.
My shutter speed was at 1/250th to kill the florescents aperture was F4 or there abouts and I also dialed the exposure compensation up. I wan
ted the background overexposed and I was shooting full ETTL so the flashes were pretty much trying to figure out what I wanted. After a short while I was not a very happy camper. Why ?
Because the images were looking like this....
I wanted smooth and even. Well its better than reflections everywhere but not much better. So all the flashes were put onto manual - the evil and stupid ETTL just wanted to ruin my day!! After a short while a many adjusting of flashes later I was still not a very happy camper. Oh and sorry evil and stupid ETTL the even stuipederer human could not do much better. I think if I spent more time and played with more light modifiers I would have got a better results from the speedlites but I wanted soft light and fast.
It then hit me like a train. AVAILABLE LIGHT. It was staring to me all along. Why did
it not occur to me first off. Well I think that when you walk into a situation normally the first thing that comes to mind is what tools did I bring and not what is available to work with. Ahh The florescents my friends the flourecents I know I have had harsh words about you before and I keep trying to kill you with very high shutter speeds but today we can have a truce and you are my friend. The florescents were the perfect light source and with a long enough exposure turned out to be the right tool for the trophy job. The trophies were shot at 1/4 sec and at F4. The only things done in post were cropping, levels and a bit of dodging.
And well done Smiths Manufacturing here in Durban South Africa on the great achievements.
The results
My shutter speed was at 1/250th to kill the florescents aperture was F4 or there abouts and I also dialed the exposure compensation up. I wan
ted the background overexposed and I was shooting full ETTL so the flashes were pretty much trying to figure out what I wanted. After a short while I was not a very happy camper. Why ?Because the images were looking like this....
I wanted smooth and even. Well its better than reflections everywhere but not much better. So all the flashes were put onto manual - the evil and stupid ETTL just wanted to ruin my day!! After a short while a many adjusting of flashes later I was still not a very happy camper. Oh and sorry evil and stupid ETTL the even stuipederer human could not do much better. I think if I spent more time and played with more light modifiers I would have got a better results from the speedlites but I wanted soft light and fast.
It then hit me like a train. AVAILABLE LIGHT. It was staring to me all along. Why did
it not occur to me first off. Well I think that when you walk into a situation normally the first thing that comes to mind is what tools did I bring and not what is available to work with. Ahh The florescents my friends the flourecents I know I have had harsh words about you before and I keep trying to kill you with very high shutter speeds but today we can have a truce and you are my friend. The florescents were the perfect light source and with a long enough exposure turned out to be the right tool for the trophy job. The trophies were shot at 1/4 sec and at F4. The only things done in post were cropping, levels and a bit of dodging.And well done Smiths Manufacturing here in Durban South Africa on the great achievements.
The results
Saturday 27 March 2010
The EYEEEES
Hi all
Today I want talk about the equipment you need as a photographer in order to do corrections to you photos after you have taken them. This processing is also know as post processing or post for short. As my little one would say the EYEEES. Or in big person talk the eyes and to see what your photos should look like you need good eyes or monitors. And if you want skip this part I wont hold I against you.
The most important thing about post production to photos is your monitor. No matter what or how good a photo is unless you can see reasonably accurately what you are doing to it whats the point? You can make some guesses about what the colours actually are but unless you have a calibrated monitor It would be a little like picking out a colour at the paint store while wearing rose tinted glasses. Then getting very upset when you get home and start painting. The colour was not really what you wanted because of the rose tinted glasses you had on. Basically what Im saying is you need to see what you are doing. The other most important thing is making sure your monitor is calibrated no matter what monitor you have.
I now run dell monitors here at HQ and they are good value for money. Not the best monitors money can buy but way ahead of most of the monitors out there. Also on paper they dont really look that impressive but for my work probably the best money Ive spent in a long time. Here is the spec my dell monitors
The Dell 2209WA
Panel Type
Why do they seem so similir on paper but I would pick the Dell every time. Oh and did I mention the Dell costs about twice as much. If you look carefully The Samsung supports 16.7 Million colours. It can only display 262 thousand colours. It cannot actually display 16.7Million colours but supports them. The Dell on the other hand can display all 16.7 Million colours. The reason for this is the technology between the two are different. In order to bring a product to the market cost effectively the manufactures have to use TFT technology. There is a lot out there to explain it I wont but right now its about the cheapest way to make a LCD monitor. The IPS method that Dell use is far better but costs more to produce. And because its hard for the general user to notice the difference between the two most users will pick the Samsung it cheaper and looks pretty good at first glance. Most users are not doing photographic work so it will be just fine for them.
Now Sales people want there product to seem better than the competition. So they have started to push this dynamic contrast ratio spec. they say its 20000:1 but Dont get fooled by that its only 1000:1 typical as they state. Some companys are trying to pass that off as to why they are better than the competition.
Its a little like when in audio systems manufacturers ratings suddenly changed to PMPO ratings. PMPO stands for Peak Maximum Power Output. It is the maximum power the system can put out for the tiniest fraction of a second. RMS which stands for Root Mean Square is a more realistic rating of the power the system can continually sustain. When sales teams are selling to the general masses they will resort to all manner of rubbish ratings to try make there product sound better than the competition. And for someone who does not know the difference between a 300W RMS system and a 5000W PMPO system the 5000W system sounds wonderful and probably a lot cheaper to. It becomes a no brainer 5000W for 50% of the price. It sounds wonderful but beware that 5000W is probably only 50W RMS system.
So one of the question you are pondering is why do all things on a TFT type monitor not look crappy if they only have 262 thousand colours to work with. 16.7 Milion / 64 = 262 Thousand colours. Well in 16.7 million colours to distinguish the difference in 64 colours of very similar colour and tone next to one another would be hard for anyone to do. So most of us will not ever notice. Unless that is it was pointed out to you and you were working with photographs. The manufactures of the TFT monitors have sort of over come the lack of colours by getting in what the colour the computer is actully wanting displayed on the screen and then going to a table and figuring out what colour to display on the screen that would be the closest to what the computer actually wanted.
The next piece of hardware is more important than how good a monitor you have be it TFT type even an old CRT type screen. It is a Calibrator. I have a calibrator to check that the monitors are giving me accurate colour. Those monitors I bought are not worth that cardboard box they came in if they are not calibrated. Remeber the rose coloured glasses I was talking about. Well the calibrator basically just checks to see your monitor is not showing you a rosey tinted picture. It is checking to see that blue is blue red is red and so forth. A calibrator will also work on the lowest end monitors out there and can at least get your colours more or less where they should be. When one gets their pictures printed its a good idea to check if your printing lab does regular calibrations on their monitors and printing labs. Trust me on this Ive had pictures with purple colour casts because nothing was calibrated at the Lab I used. The kicker was they would correct the pictures colours by eye trying to compensate for what the printing lad would produce.
OK If you have been sleeping now is a good time to wake up. To the post.
Yes the thing that is more agonizing than and a one eyed deaf geriatric witch doctor trying to perform a root canal with a blunt spoon and a chicken as a hammer. Why would a one eyed deaf geriatric witch doctor trying to perform a root canal with a blunt spoon and a chicken as a hammer? Who knows but then again this is Africa and some really strange things tend to happen here. The other problem is unless you use a point and shoot or use a Polaroid camera as Joey from the famous Gulf photo plus did you just cant escape it. Im also not talking the cases of 'OMG I screwed up and have to photoshop for hours here. Im talking about the photos that are good raw and to make them a great picture just requires a bit of enhancement. Most of the pros out there will tell you that they will spend about the same time in post as they will on a shoot. And remember these guys are capturing just about perfect photos on their shoot. You just cant get away from post. Anyway lets look at a photo that I did a little while ago.
In the original photo I was in the process of learning how to light a pure white background. OK cool what can go wrong? Well a little note for the first time lighters of white backgrounds - when you client rocks up and they are wearing white and all the subject matter is white you had better hope you have all the right tools to control the light. And the worst part about it is even if you have absolute control of every aspect of the light there is a pretty good chance that somethings got to be fixed in post. Heres is the original.
A few things about this one. At the time of that photo I did not have a calibrated monitor if you read the technical bumf at the beginning you will know what Im on about. Things were a bit hit and miss. More miss than hit. What does this mean? It means I was blind. Not having a good monitor and some means of checking it is a bit like going skimp on the glass on the camera. You can get away with it for a while but it will eventually effect ones work. The photos post was done in just that manner, Blindly. Now also dont get me wrong here, on my first attempt I also did not know how to process the above photo properly so it was a collaboration of ignorance and crappy equipment.
And now the "I can seeeeeee" Post processed photo
Ahhh Much better
I am much happier about this photo and I used to like it. But when I got the new monitors There were a few photos that I thought were great that after looking at them again on the new monitors I felt they were not so good. This was one of them. And how did I process this one differently. In the original I did a few levels and a bit of bit of fiddling with highlights and left it at that. In this one I first started out with some levels, lightened things up a little. Then onto the dodge tool. I saw this technique being used by Zack Arais to eliminate the background transitions. Heres how it works. Basically the background is close to white. By dodging the background it pushes the colours to pure white. At that point you have a perfect white background. I lately have been finding some of the pure white background stuff a bit to clinical so I added a vignette just to draw a little more attention to the centre and to give the picture a bit more depth.
Again the technical waffle is just a explanation of how hardware can help make things go horribly wrong in post and why.
Today I want talk about the equipment you need as a photographer in order to do corrections to you photos after you have taken them. This processing is also know as post processing or post for short. As my little one would say the EYEEES. Or in big person talk the eyes and to see what your photos should look like you need good eyes or monitors. And if you want skip this part I wont hold I against you.
The most important thing about post production to photos is your monitor. No matter what or how good a photo is unless you can see reasonably accurately what you are doing to it whats the point? You can make some guesses about what the colours actually are but unless you have a calibrated monitor It would be a little like picking out a colour at the paint store while wearing rose tinted glasses. Then getting very upset when you get home and start painting. The colour was not really what you wanted because of the rose tinted glasses you had on. Basically what Im saying is you need to see what you are doing. The other most important thing is making sure your monitor is calibrated no matter what monitor you have.
I now run dell monitors here at HQ and they are good value for money. Not the best monitors money can buy but way ahead of most of the monitors out there. Also on paper they dont really look that impressive but for my work probably the best money Ive spent in a long time. Here is the spec my dell monitors
The Dell 2209WA
Panel Type
IPS - In Plane Switching
Contrast Ratio 1000:1 (typical)
Dynamic Contrast Ratio 3000:1 (typical)
Brightness 300 cd/m2 (typical)
Dynamic Contrast Ratio 3000:1 (typical)
Brightness 300 cd/m2 (typical)
Response Time 5 ms (typical)
The Samsung T240
Brightness 300cd/㎡
Contrast Ratio DC 20,000:1 (1,000:1) (Typ.)
Response time 5ms
Color Supported 16.7M
The Samsung T240
Brightness 300cd/㎡
Contrast Ratio DC 20,000:1 (1,000:1) (Typ.)
Response time 5ms
Color Supported 16.7M
Now Sales people want there product to seem better than the competition. So they have started to push this dynamic contrast ratio spec. they say its 20000:1 but Dont get fooled by that its only 1000:1 typical as they state. Some companys are trying to pass that off as to why they are better than the competition.
So one of the question you are pondering is why do all things on a TFT type monitor not look crappy if they only have 262 thousand colours to work with. 16.7 Milion / 64 = 262 Thousand colours. Well in 16.7 million colours to distinguish the difference in 64 colours of very similar colour and tone next to one another would be hard for anyone to do. So most of us will not ever notice. Unless that is it was pointed out to you and you were working with photographs. The manufactures of the TFT monitors have sort of over come the lack of colours by getting in what the colour the computer is actully wanting displayed on the screen and then going to a table and figuring out what colour to display on the screen that would be the closest to what the computer actually wanted.
The next piece of hardware is more important than how good a monitor you have be it TFT type even an old CRT type screen. It is a Calibrator. I have a calibrator to check that the monitors are giving me accurate colour. Those monitors I bought are not worth that cardboard box they came in if they are not calibrated. Remeber the rose coloured glasses I was talking about. Well the calibrator basically just checks to see your monitor is not showing you a rosey tinted picture. It is checking to see that blue is blue red is red and so forth. A calibrator will also work on the lowest end monitors out there and can at least get your colours more or less where they should be. When one gets their pictures printed its a good idea to check if your printing lab does regular calibrations on their monitors and printing labs. Trust me on this Ive had pictures with purple colour casts because nothing was calibrated at the Lab I used. The kicker was they would correct the pictures colours by eye trying to compensate for what the printing lad would produce.
OK If you have been sleeping now is a good time to wake up. To the post.
Yes the thing that is more agonizing than and a one eyed deaf geriatric witch doctor trying to perform a root canal with a blunt spoon and a chicken as a hammer. Why would a one eyed deaf geriatric witch doctor trying to perform a root canal with a blunt spoon and a chicken as a hammer? Who knows but then again this is Africa and some really strange things tend to happen here. The other problem is unless you use a point and shoot or use a Polaroid camera as Joey from the famous Gulf photo plus did you just cant escape it. Im also not talking the cases of 'OMG I screwed up and have to photoshop for hours here. Im talking about the photos that are good raw and to make them a great picture just requires a bit of enhancement. Most of the pros out there will tell you that they will spend about the same time in post as they will on a shoot. And remember these guys are capturing just about perfect photos on their shoot. You just cant get away from post. Anyway lets look at a photo that I did a little while ago.
In the original photo I was in the process of learning how to light a pure white background. OK cool what can go wrong? Well a little note for the first time lighters of white backgrounds - when you client rocks up and they are wearing white and all the subject matter is white you had better hope you have all the right tools to control the light. And the worst part about it is even if you have absolute control of every aspect of the light there is a pretty good chance that somethings got to be fixed in post. Heres is the original.
A few things about this one. At the time of that photo I did not have a calibrated monitor if you read the technical bumf at the beginning you will know what Im on about. Things were a bit hit and miss. More miss than hit. What does this mean? It means I was blind. Not having a good monitor and some means of checking it is a bit like going skimp on the glass on the camera. You can get away with it for a while but it will eventually effect ones work. The photos post was done in just that manner, Blindly. Now also dont get me wrong here, on my first attempt I also did not know how to process the above photo properly so it was a collaboration of ignorance and crappy equipment.
And now the "I can seeeeeee" Post processed photo
Ahhh Much better
I am much happier about this photo and I used to like it. But when I got the new monitors There were a few photos that I thought were great that after looking at them again on the new monitors I felt they were not so good. This was one of them. And how did I process this one differently. In the original I did a few levels and a bit of bit of fiddling with highlights and left it at that. In this one I first started out with some levels, lightened things up a little. Then onto the dodge tool. I saw this technique being used by Zack Arais to eliminate the background transitions. Heres how it works. Basically the background is close to white. By dodging the background it pushes the colours to pure white. At that point you have a perfect white background. I lately have been finding some of the pure white background stuff a bit to clinical so I added a vignette just to draw a little more attention to the centre and to give the picture a bit more depth.
Again the technical waffle is just a explanation of how hardware can help make things go horribly wrong in post and why.
Saturday 13 March 2010
An extraordinary model
Pictures from shoot at studio
Model/s: Jana
Make-Up: Ebony
Photographer: Henrik
Equipment : Canon
Focal Length : 24-70 F2.8L 70-200 F2.8L
Aperture : F11 - F13
ISO : 100
Shutter speed : 1/160
I would like to start off by thanking all involved.
Thank you Thank you and Thank you.
now to parts that count What has happened to the Blog?
We have been working on the website so sorry Blog is really not getting regular updates
www.htfotography.co.za is where one can see some of our galleries etc.
As for the picures. I was reading a book and in the book ( yes I can Read) it said that to really make a wow picture one should use a good looking model. And its a sound piece of advice. That sound piece of advice does not really extend to the other pitfalls surrounding that piece of advice.
OK so you book a good looking model. Great only problem is the model probably went out partying the night before oh and did I mention she probably has boyfriend/girlfriend issues and a whole lot of other issues and maybe even some more in closet stuff etc. that he/she has to tell someone , that someone is normally you, and this has to be done before we can even get makeup near her or on her. OK OK I admit models are not the most reliable of creatures but every once in a while you get a model that looks great comes pretty well prepared and wants to make great photos. I have been fortunate to work with a few of these models and from a photographers point of view it is a whole lot easier to get great pictures when you work with them. The model that arrives on time and ready will get better photos at the end of the day because the photographer can now concentrate on getting good shots and not worrying about saying something that will cause tears etc. On this shoot another model was supposed to be there but she did not pitch. Jana was on time and prepared etc. When she heard that the other model was not going to be there the attitude was great more time to spend being photographed. As it turned out the extra time spent with her gave me some really great extra looks. Ebony did the makeup on this shoot and Im real happy how the whole thing came out.
Jana was a fantastic model and really easy an fun to work with. She clowned around and we all had fun when a model is at ease the best shots are captured. Even though we shot some sinister looking stuff there is a glint of something in the eyes and that seems to make all the difference in the shots.
The photography side was simple has Zack Arais has a wonderful tutorial on seamless white background check it out. www.zarias.com
I used the tutorials and a bit of experimenting to get the photos to way I wanted them.
As for post just a little bit of correcting here and there added a lighting effect for one and a bit of vignetting across the board. Black and whites where converted using the red channel mostly. The reason being the red filter makes the skin tones look better and lighter in black and white.
And there you have it folks some good solid photos.
Model/s: Jana
Make-Up: Ebony
Photographer: Henrik
Equipment : Canon
Focal Length : 24-70 F2.8L 70-200 F2.8L
Aperture : F11 - F13
ISO : 100
Shutter speed : 1/160
I would like to start off by thanking all involved.
Thank you Thank you and Thank you.
now to parts that count What has happened to the Blog?
We have been working on the website so sorry Blog is really not getting regular updates
www.htfotography.co.za is where one can see some of our galleries etc.
As for the picures. I was reading a book and in the book ( yes I can Read) it said that to really make a wow picture one should use a good looking model. And its a sound piece of advice. That sound piece of advice does not really extend to the other pitfalls surrounding that piece of advice.
OK so you book a good looking model. Great only problem is the model probably went out partying the night before oh and did I mention she probably has boyfriend/girlfriend issues and a whole lot of other issues and maybe even some more in closet stuff etc. that he/she has to tell someone , that someone is normally you, and this has to be done before we can even get makeup near her or on her. OK OK I admit models are not the most reliable of creatures but every once in a while you get a model that looks great comes pretty well prepared and wants to make great photos. I have been fortunate to work with a few of these models and from a photographers point of view it is a whole lot easier to get great pictures when you work with them. The model that arrives on time and ready will get better photos at the end of the day because the photographer can now concentrate on getting good shots and not worrying about saying something that will cause tears etc. On this shoot another model was supposed to be there but she did not pitch. Jana was on time and prepared etc. When she heard that the other model was not going to be there the attitude was great more time to spend being photographed. As it turned out the extra time spent with her gave me some really great extra looks. Ebony did the makeup on this shoot and Im real happy how the whole thing came out.
Jana was a fantastic model and really easy an fun to work with. She clowned around and we all had fun when a model is at ease the best shots are captured. Even though we shot some sinister looking stuff there is a glint of something in the eyes and that seems to make all the difference in the shots.
The photography side was simple has Zack Arais has a wonderful tutorial on seamless white background check it out. www.zarias.com
I used the tutorials and a bit of experimenting to get the photos to way I wanted them.
As for post just a little bit of correcting here and there added a lighting effect for one and a bit of vignetting across the board. Black and whites where converted using the red channel mostly. The reason being the red filter makes the skin tones look better and lighter in black and white.
And there you have it folks some good solid photos.
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