People are vertical, unless they are sleeping.

Posted by kevin focht on Jul 25, 2011 in How to's and manuals, Shooting Tips | 0 comments

Ok everyone listen up!!!!!!!

People are vertical, so why in the world do you all want to shoot them horizontal? I just don’t get it. Is it because the camera is set up that way?

You do know that you can turn that sucker on it’s side and improve your images, right?

I get this shot a lot in my classes. Is this a professional shot or is it a snap shot? I think a snap shot.

Now don’t get me wrong horizontals can be nice with a purpose. Let’s say the person is laying down, or there is something cool in the background or even just to make a nice composition.

In this shot, you can see that I deliberately put Essie to one side of the frame to make a statement or as an element of the composition. This horizontal works.

Let’s talk vertical. There are good and bad verticals. Let’s show some examples

I see this one a lot too. This is a “new” composition that is from the digital auto focus age. I know you have that center focus spot and darn it, you are going to use it. That’s fine, but you need to recompose. Once again this looks unprofessional and like a snap shot.

There ya go! I used a different focus spot and recomposed to get her in the right position. Not too much head space now. Look, Essie liked it so much she is smiling.

So please for the love of humanity, the next time you click a shot of a person shoot vertical and compose properly!

Kevin

Shooting men

Posted by kevin focht on Jul 18, 2011 in How to's and manuals, Shooting Tips | 0 comments

I have been shooting a lot for my own portfolio lately. Women and men both.

Guys have always been really easy for me to shoot for some strange reason. They just seem easier to shoot.

You can cross light them if you want. Texture is always good on a guy, so you don’t have to worry so much about flat lighting. In fact, I look for ways to make men look tougher.

In the image above, I moved the model closer to the wall and away from the light because I wanted to get more dimension to his face. I needed more contrast, so I subtracted light from one side by putting him close to the wall.

You also want to shoot up at men to make them look stronger. The shot above is a perfect example of this. By shooting up at him, I made him look larger than life.

Simple things can make a huge difference when you shoot guys.

These are the kind of things that I will cover in my two week class How To Shoot Guys

Check it out and sign up here. The class starts soon!!!!

The difference in focal length

Posted by kevin focht on Jul 6, 2011 in How to's and manuals, Shooting Tips | 0 comments

Let’s talk about what different focal lengths do for a headshot of a subject. Each focal lengths will give you different looks and each has it’s place.

I see this problem all the time in the classes that I teach. Photographers tend to use to short of a focal length and then wonder why they can’t throw the background out of focus.

For this article, I shot at f2.8 for everything.

Here is the location of the shoot

You can see from this shot, that there is a lot going on in the background. The light is really nice, but the background is a hot mess. What’s a photographer to do?

As you can see from this shot, shooting at 70mm is nice, but you are still seeing the background and most of it is in focus.

This shot was done at 105mm. Besides the crop, you can start to see the background go a little more out of focus. It’s starting to look a little more like a nice outdoor portrait.

200mm you can really see what is going on with this experiment. The background is completely gone. So even if you step back to do a half shot, the background will be out of focus. This is a stylistic thing, but I have no idea why some of you shoot at f5.6 or with short focal lengths. The person is the subject and not the background. Why not isolate them from the background and make them pop by throwing the background out of focus.

I did the same process with a cropped sensor camera. I used my Nikon D7000 for this. All shot with the same 70-200 f2.8 and shot at 2.8.

70mm on D7000

105mm on the D7000

200mm on the D7000

Aside from having to stand back farther, there isn’t a lot of difference and that surprised me. What I had been told is that you gain depth of field with the cropped sensor, and I suppose at the same relative focal length you would, but for this purpose it looks like no difference to me.

Like I always say at the studio “what are these other apertures for?” Shoot wide open and a long focal length and make your subjects pop!!

Kevin

How to take a meter reading

Posted by kevin focht on Jun 14, 2011 in How to's and manuals, Shooting Tips | 0 comments

Why I love backlight

Posted by kevin focht on May 16, 2011 in How to's and manuals, Shooting Tips | 0 comments

I was having this discussion the other day with an older photographer. He was saying how he hated back lighting and that it was just lazy.

I had to disagree!!! I think back lighting adds a mood to an otherwise normal shot.

I love back lighting, and it is one of my favorite techniques. If I can’t flat light it, I back light it.

Meter off the face and go. You can adjust from there. If you want it a little more moody, go darker. If you want it airy, just open it up

It can also be cool with ultra wide angle lenses, like the 14mm used above. Get the sun in there. Don’t worry about lens flare. I don’t ever clean my 14mm because I want the flare.

I did a fashion job once where I actually put baby powder on the front element of the lens, so it would flare.

So the next time you can’t get a nice mood, try back lighting.

After Dark Day One- Fashion Shoot

Posted by kevin focht on May 10, 2011 in How to's and manuals, Shooting Tips | 0 comments

If you have never been to an After Dark seminar, you are really missing out. Where else can you take a seminar from 20-30 of the top photographers all in one place.

It’s my first time mentoring at After Dark, and it is amazing. You are told to just go for it and teach what you want. When you aren’t teaching, just grab a model and shoot something.

I got done today at 10:15 and then grabbed the model Nicolle and we set up a couple hot lights and started shooting.

With students along for the ride, we started out with one hot light and then added a second for a kicker.

I just love hot lights because everyone can see what you are shooting. No guessing game, you see what you get. Nicolle was amazing as it was her first day of modeling. She has killer bone structure as you can see from the shots.

This shot was taken with just the two small hot lights that you can pick up for $200 bucks. You don’t need to spend a lot of money to make amazing images.

For those of you interested, I will be mentoring at the next one in Charlotte.

For more information, check out After Dark Education

Kevin