Over time, I have seen many images where a pattern is projected onto someone’s face, and I’ve always struggled to simulate this type of lighting. My attempts usually resulted in poorly defined shapes and not the sort of razor-sharp edges I was expecting.
Read detailsOver the course of my career I have used White Lightning, Elinchrom, Alien Bees and Profoto lights. I wanted to share with you today why I switched and what I learned along the way.
Read detailsI wanted to share with you a little about how I got to where I am, in hopes that it may help you get to where you’re going a little faster.
Read detailsEveryone has a light stand, even make up artists. Some photographers have boom arms but when you really want to refine your work, or make your life easier in the studio easier you’ll need an arsenal of hardware. And for the most part I am not talking about the durable goods you can pick up at Home Depot or Lowe’s.
Read detailsAdapting the look of LED or Fluorescent tube backgrounds for still photography with a DIY approach using softboxes, a v-flat, a knife and three Profoto lights.
Read detailsAs photographers we might obsess about this modifier or that one, believe me I have, but often times we fall short when it comes to shadow detail. This is something I struggle with from time to time when shooting in a new room and every shoot poses its own set of problems, so the purpose of this post is to share some basic concepts that I hope will help you maximize dynamic range and develop more details in your depictions.
Read detailsOn a snowy winter day, we crammed 18 people into a Chicago barbershop built for a dozen, so we could shoot the foldout magazine cover of Positively Aware’s annual HIV Drug Guide. It is always a challenge when you have to work with 13 subjects and have them all engaged, while maintaining the identity of the space and leaving room for the magazine logo, text, and the fold.
Read detailsLet’s pretend for a moment I am sitting inside a reality show confession booth. Instead of disparaging the other characters on the show, I’m going to disparage myself (not really, actually. In my garage I have a garbage can full of modifiers. It looks like an episode of Hoarders in miniature, only instead of holding on to teddy bears and half-full beer cans, I collect things that make hard light look soft and in turn, make me look good.
Read detailsOne of the most popular questions I am asked is: what are those lights in the background of my portraits? Aside from the one time that I used a Profoto Monolight unsuccessfully, every other occurrence I can recall featured a vintage light designed by Mole-Richardson.
Read detailsAfter being inspired by Sophie Palmer’s portrait depicting boredom with a Catholic priest inside the confession booth, below, I decided to try my hand at projecting divine patterns on model Alex Mitchell’s face by making a custom Cucoloris.
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