Photographing junk - part 2

When I am faced with the enormous array of picture possibilities to be found in this old barn, I find it best to pick off each picture one at a time and move on to the next subject only when I feel Ihave captured what Iset out to achieve. Explore each subject thoroughly and be prepared to move in close to pick out details. These close-ups can make fascinating images, especially when you are photographing old and weathered tools and implements.

Moving further inside the barn and away from the door, it got much darker. But this just meant using slower shutter speeds. There is absolutely no reason why you need use a wide aperture in these low light conditions – provided you are using a good firm tripod. For most of my shots I set the aperture to around f11 or f16 and used shutter speeds ranging from 1 or 2 seconds. Be patient when waiting to check your image in the LCD, processing usually takes a little longer when you have used a slow shutter speed.

For many of my pictures I used a slow shutter speed and let off a hand-held flash. Sometimes firing the flash several times from different directions and positions while the shutter was open.
Read more about this The flash does not need to be connected to the camera in any way: a very basic technique that can create beautiful light if done well – experiment. It costs nothing.

If you'd like the opportunity to photograph the wonderful contents of this old barn, it is sometimes - not always - possible when you come to me for one-to-one tuition. See my website for more details

Top photograph
I moved some other implements that were hanging on these same hooks. This was done to keep the shapes simple. When shooting at a white wall like this, your exposure metering can easily be confused by all that white and give you a reading that will under expose. Use you Exposure Compensation function to increase the exposure by up to one stop. If, like me, you only ever use the Manual mode, simply over expose by a similar amount

Photograph 2








I liked this old wooden boat resting on the pram wheels. I actually wanted to show the whole boat, but it was in a cramped corner of the barn surrounded by other objects. A very wide angle lens would have distorted the shape too much so I contented myself with having to cut of the stern of the boat


Photograph 3




The Ski-Lark has been in this barn since the 1960s, gathering more and more junk around her – a tin bath, milk churn and a mildewed tarpaulin. It was the combination of greens and blues that attracted me. I simple put the camera on the tripod with an exposure of 1sec at f9.5 and used the available light that was filtering down from the roof






Photograph 4






Don’t forget to explore each subject critically – The Ski-Lark was resting on a very old trailer, and I noticed the flat tyres and rusty springs. This time I needed to put a white reflector beneath the camera (just out of shot at the bottom of the picture) to reflect some light back upwards to show some detail in the shadows

Photograph 5
I did no re-arranging whatsoever with this picture. I did not want to disturb the dust and leaves on the floor – it might have taken years for them to get like that. No flash, no reflector, no tricks. Just a straightforward image with loads of nostalgic interest

Photograph 6

This saw wheel was in a very dark corner of the barn. In order to pick out the outline shape of the curved blade, I simple fired a flash behind the wheel facing towards the camera... remember - backlight accentuates outline shapes. I debated whether or not to remove the bright green nettle. In the end I decided I quite liked the splash of colour

Photographing junk - part 1

Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder – well, I find old junk a constant source of inspiration.

Give me a barn full of old tat and I’m in heaven. Problem is, so many people just throw their old stuff out before I get around to photographing it. Fortunately there’s a retired farmer near my home in Galloway who still has a treasure chest of rusty old implements and tools in his barn. Hopefully he’ll never get rid of it and I’ll be able to keep going back to take pictures. I sometimes take my students there, but it’s best if they are on the same wavelength if they are to get the full benefit from the place.

There are old boats that haven’t seen the water since the 1960s, a road roller of similar vintage, farm implements hung on the walls and scattered around the floors, saws, spanners, you name it. There are colours, shapes, textures and heavy doses of nostalgia everywhere you I look.

When you are confronted with so many photo opportunities like this, it’s always best to take a good look around first and work through the place methodically with some outline plan about what you want to achieve. This way you won’t be stumbling around aimlessly trying to pick off pictures here and there. You’ll have a system.

I started just inside the doorway where I used the available natural light with the camera on my solid Benbo tripod. I photographed an old boat and the road roller. If possible, always walk all the way around the objects that catch your eye – ask yourself what it was about them that attracted you and then try to accentuate that aspect. Is it the colour, for instance, the texture, outline shape? Perhaps the object tells a story – like the wooden boat resting on the pram wheels. Whatever it is you must try to maximise it in order to bring impact to each picture.

There is no need to hurry in these situations. You can enjoy every minute, so take your time and consider each picture angle carefully. The light is unlikely to change dramatically, so again this will not put you under any pressure. Take a good big white reflector with you so that you can direct some light into the shadows, or even bounce your flash off it. There are endless possibilities once you get started.

Photograph 1 (top)
The the first thing I saw when walking through the barn door was this old roller. I explored it from all angles – walking round it several times and took lots of pictures, but it was the front view that really interested me. I moved right in to crop out all the surroundings. I also set my WB (White Balance) to Cloudy. This added more yellow and emphasized the orange paint and reddish rust of the subject

Photograph2
I also photographed the roller’s steering wheel and seat, but this time I used some flash to give harder, crisper lighting.

Photograph 3
As part of my exploration of this subject, I decided to use some flash off the camera. It’s harder, more direct light would add more shadows and impact to the picture. I shot several different angles. This time the shutter speed was speeded up to 1/3sec in order to cut down the daylight coming in through the door and the hole in the roof of the barn. I didn’t even connect the flash with a synch cable to the camera, I simple pressed the button and fired the flash immediately - while the shutter was open. This takes a bit of practise when using anything less than one second, but saves messing around with cables. Okay, so I’m lazy.

Photographing with multi flash

Here’s a picture – a very simple one, with no pretensions to be anything other than a demonstration shot. It shows the group of photographers who joined me last week to learn more about portraiture.

I was showing the group how to get the best from their flash guns both on and off the camera, when I decided to show them the old technique of firing multiple flashed on one exposure – with just one flash unit of course.

I was taught the technique by a photographer called Arthur Partington when I was just a 15 year old apprentice on a local newspaper. In those days staff photographers like Arthur were expected to turn their hands to every job that came in to the office – and that included news, features, weddings, some commercial work, and advertising. Arthur had the task of photographing a carpet warehouse in an old converted cotton mill. The floor area was vast, the ceiling fairly low and supported by dozens of steel pillars. The whole place was covered in rolls of carpet. The client wanted to show the scale of his operation by having the entire warehouse area photographed and the picture printed in a full page ad in our broadsheet paper.

One winter evening, Arthur went prepared with his Speed Graphic 5 x 4 glass plate camera, a heavy wooden tripod, a huge bulb flash gun, an empty shoulder bag and another containing about a dozen PF1000 flash bulbs (I think that’s what they were). These old-fashioned flash bulbs were about the size of a large orange and often exploded when they were fired.

And Arthur took me. I had a particular job to do.

First he found his best angle and set the camera up on the tripod. Then he turned to me and walked me right around the warehouse floor showing me exactly where and in which direction he wanted me to let of one of the flash bulbs. I was under threat of death if I got it wrong. Every time I let off a flash bulb I would have to be hidden behind one of the pillars. Right. Arthur eyed my with distrust and asked if I was ready. He pulled out the sheath from the slide holder. Opened the shutter on ‘B’ and told me to Go!

Oh, I almost forgot, before he sent me off, he turned off most of the lights in the warehouse. I could barely see where I was going.

A raced around that warehouse blasting off flashes as I went. Each time I fired a flash bulb it had to be unscrewed (burning my fingers), the spent bulb dropped into the empty bag and a new bulb screwed into the flash gun ready for the next blast. Three times bulbs exploded with a terrifying bag, spraying me with fine shards of glass. Each time Arthur yelled – “Don’t stop you little bugger, keep moving”.

By the time I had fired the last flash bulb and Arthur had closed his shutter, I had covered the equivalent of a 200 yard sprint under heavy fire in the dark. I was gasping for breath and shell-shocked.

“Right”, said Arthur. “Get that camera packed up and we’ll get off home.”

I watched Arthur develop the glass plate and print the photograph next morning. I could hardly believe my eyes. It was as though the entire warehouse had been lit with studio lighting. It was beautifully lit.

Well that’s a mighty long explanation for the method used to take the picture above. All I did was darken the room. Stick the camera on a tripod. Tell the subjects to keep dead still, opened the shutter and dashed around everyone letting off the flash gun. Closed the shutter. No cables, no infra-red, no wireless-systems. None of that is needed… just you with a flash in your hand The flash was fired four times.

I admit it’s not ideal – some of the shadows are in the wrong place, one flash has looked into the camera (over the shoulder of the man sat on the left) and another has lit part of my red sweater (over on the right). But as a quick two-minute demo it was very effective.

You can try this at home. It’s great fun and you’ll learn lots. Multi flash pictures can have an extraordinarily powerful visual appeal if you get it just right.

Wedding photography

I have said before that I am not designed for wedding photography - and I do say that to my students that when they ask me give them some instruction on the subject. However, the basics of good photography are the same no matter what you are photographing.

Craig Dempster came to me before taking on a wedding - quite a responsibility. He had done a couple of weddings before for friends, but this was a big assignment and he was very aware of his responsibilites.

He had a new DLSR and was getting just a bit lost. I'm delighted to say that I was able to put him of the right track and he has sent me a link to a short slide show which I'd like to share with you. I am really very impressed. I don't much care for the strong, hard toplighting of a few of the shots of the bride and groom, but otherwise I think he has done a really good job, imaginative and lively - and the bride and groom were over the moon with the results.

This is what Craig wrote to me...

Hi Philip
I was generally quite pleased with the [wedding] day. Still some issues with sharpness but the training you gave me on the group shots really paid off. I put the camera on a tripod and managed to get well balanced, sharp shots with very slow shutter speeds with the flash and soak up some of the background. I was so glad I came down to you for a day! I spent the most part of the wedding day walking around with the monopod!

I was also quite pleased with some of the first dance shot were I put the speedlight on a speaker and fired it remotely which created a nice silhouette effect in Kerry's vail.

Anyway thanks again. Your help and advice was invaluable.

You can see the show http://www.imagehindsight.co.uk/kerry&howard (excuse the music but they asked for it - Their first dance!)

Best regards
Craig

How to take flash photographs – part 4

Over the last three post, I’ve demonstrated just a few of the ways you can create beautiful, soft, directional light with your flash gun attached to your camera. I hope by now you are realising that a flash really is a superbly versatile and portable source of light. When you have the facility to separate that flash gun from your camera, things get even better. Then you can really put light exactly where you want it.

For the photojournalist, a small portable flash is absolutely essential. Without it, he, or she, could not hope to get professional standard photographs in difficult, remote and often poorly lit locations. I have often chosen deliberately to photograph my subjects in what might be described as ‘difficult’ light conditions, and the reason for this is simple – those difficult light conditions can produce highly atmospheric photographs.

Take a glance at the photograph of the man sitting astride the old butcher’s bicycle. This was a wonderful story about a man called Cor Ellen – he is a professional beachcomber on the Dutch Friesian island of Texel in the North Sea. I was commissioned to photograph him for an article for ‘You’, the Mail on Sunday Magazine in UK. I took a great many photographs of Cor – in his home, working on the beach, with his collection of extraordinary things found washed up on the shore. But I wanted an atmospheric shot of Cor on the old bicycle he used to get around the island. I also wanted to show the atmosphere of this remote, wild and windswept place – where better than on the shore beneath the lighthouse.

To add atmosphere, I chose to wait until late afternoon when the light was fading. The camera was put on a tripod. I took a light reading of the cloudy part of the sky. At ISO100, that gave me 1/15sec at f11. The flash was held in my hand as far away from the camera as possible to my right hand side. It was connected to the camera by a long cable (synch lead). I timed the flashes of the lighthouse and pressed the shutter just before it shone.

The flash has fired and lit Cor and the bicycle, but the shutter has remained open – gathering the light from the sky and the lighthouse. A very similar technique to that I described in my article about photographing sparks.

TIP FOR TODAY
Try to avoid those ‘curly’ flash cables – the springy ones like those on a telephone handset. They are a menace because the temptation is to stretch them just a little more, and a little more, to get the flash just that little bit further away from the camera. Then BANG! the tripod is pulled over. It happens so suddenly you will be unable to stop it. Better – if you can - to use a long, simple synch lead with no spring or curls in it. Then you will always know how far it can be pulled.

Cordless infra-red devices are often unreliable in adverse outdoor conditions.

How to take flash photographs - part 3

When I said that sidelight was the ‘star of the show’ I meant it. It is not always ideal for making attractive women look more glamorous, but when you want to bring out the character in your subject, it can work extremely well. For portraits, it is really very easy to create with a flash attached to the hot shoe of your camera. The soft sidelight in the picture of the girl in period costume was done simply by pointing the flash at a large reflector positioned out of shot on the left. I have used a fairly fast shutter speed 1/160sec to cut out most of the ambient light in the background, which has gone quite dark - just the effect I was looking for. What could be easier?

Remember, flash is an instant burst of light. If you are shooting in a room that is also brightly lit by daylight coming in through the windows or strong artificial light, and the shutter remains open after the flash has fired (slow shutter speed), you will ‘gather’ more light in the camera. This can be a very effective technique for certain subjects. It can ruin others.

Now take another look at the portrait posted in part 2 of the chap kippering his lungs with the roll-up cigarette. This time I have bounced the flash off a light-coloured wall off to the left and used a slow shutter speed, 1/15sec. This has ADDED some ambient light which has helped fill the shadows on the right side of his face. The slight blurring of the smoke is evidence of that slow shutter speed. The flash has gone off and lit his face on the left of the picture, but the shutter has remained open long enough to gather some available light on the right. A very different effect from that picture of the girl in costume, but it has worked in this situation.

1
I have bounced the flash off a light-coloured surface to my right. This creates good sidelight which has lit the model’s hair nicely and given shape and form to her face. The nearer the flash is to the reflective wall, the stronger the shadows will be. The effect was done by using the set-up in 2

3
If you want to soften those shadows, simply put another reflector opposite the flash. This lovely, soft, flattering light is created by pointing a flash at a wall to the right of the model while placing another white reflector to the left. This reflector helps fill any shadows created by the sidelight

4
Some flash guns do not articulate to the sides – they will only point dead ahead and upwards. Don’t forget you can reflect these flash guns off a wall to create sidelight if you turn the camera on its side and shoot in portrait format. The most versatile flash guns have a light head that can be swivelled both upwards 90 degrees, and also to either side and directly backwards – away from the subject. Almost any angle of light reflection can be achieved with this type of flash gun.

Flash is the most portable, convenient and versatile light source you can use, but a moveable flash head that can be aimed in all directions is essential if you are to achieve the most from a flash unit when it is attached to your camera

How to take flash photographs - part 2

Let’s go though just a few of the techniques you can use to capture simple indoor flash portraits when your flash unit is attached to your camera’s hot shoe.

The essential thing to remember is that a portable flash is a very small-sized light source and when pointed directly at your subject will cause hard-edged, dark shadows.

Flash is an instant burst of light lasting sometimes as little as 1/20,000sec, so its effects are difficult to predict. Lots of practice helps, but remember, you have the luxury of instant digital playback – so use it; and don’t be afraid to experiment if you don’t get it right first time.

What about ‘bounced’ flash? Bouncing (reflecting) light off a white wall or reflector is a bit like playing snooker – its all about judging angles and distances. It really does need practice. Do not get fixated by bouncing (reflecting) the flash off the ceiling. That will give you toplight. Ugh! We spend a lot of time avoiding top light when we are shooting outside by trying to time our photography for early morning and late afternoon when the sun is low in the sky. So why do we want to use top light indoors? It’s horrible.

Just take a look at the set-up in picture 1. The flash has been directed up at a white ceiling. Its effect is seen in picture 2 – eyes light black holes in the snow, deep shadow under the chin. Don’t do it. You can improve things by placing a reflector under the model’s face (picture 4) so that some of the light coming down from the ceiling is reflected back up again under the eyes and chin. This has produced picture 3 – much improved.

Another possibility is to direct the flash back over your head to a large reflector positioned behind you. See picture 5. A wall, white door, or large white card will do. This should produce an effect similar to picture 6. Now, in effect, you are using frontlight from a large light source (that big reflector behind you). It will have the effect of flattening the image by taking away the shadows. This can be very flattering for an attractive young model, but a bit boring when you are wanting to convey the character of an older or male subject. For that you need the ‘star of the show’ -sidelight - and I’ll show you more about that in the next post, but first, read about that picture I showed you yesterday...

So what was the set-up for the picture of the man with the mask?
A sheet of newspaper has been taped to the wall off the picture to the right and the flash head has been pointed at it so that the flash light bounces back to the model’s face. The wall was about 5 feet away from us. The fastest shutter speed compatible with the camera’s flash synchronisation (1/160sec) has been used to eliminate any other light in the room and the model has been positioned as far as possible from the wall behind him. The light of the flash has not carried as far as this background so it has not been lit – it appears as a black. I wanted the deep shadows to add drama, so no reflector was used on the left hand side of the picture



NEXT - in part 3

What was the set-up for the picture of the chap kippering his lungs with the roll-up fag, above?



And more on sidelight

How to take flash photographs - part 1

Do you use flash only as a last resort when you run out of daylight? If so you are missing out on a most versatile light source. Over the couple of posts I’m going to explain how a flash gun can produce more than just an ‘in-your-face’ blast of light.

Take a look at the photograph of the man with the Venetian mask. Was it taken with directional sidelight from a north-facing window? Maybe it was lit in a studio using a big white brolly or soft box? No, it was taken using just one small portable electronic flash gun attached to the hot shoe on the camera. No tripod, no cables, no sophisticated gear whatsoever. It was the sort of simple set-up you might use almost anywhere.

I show my students this picture when they tell me they hate using flash. They say it ‘kills the atmosphere’. I like to demonstrate how flash is the fastest, cleanest, most portable, convenient, controllable and versatile light source they can use. It has endless creative possibilities, you can carry it about in your pocket, and, when you know how to handle it properly, it can create beautiful high quality directional light.

Sure, it’s bound to have power limitations – you’re not going to light the interior of the Albert Hall or the Hollywood Bowl with a portable flash gun mounted on your camera – but once you know where those limitations are, it becomes an invaluable tool.

Picture 1 shows the result of using straight, head-on flash with the set-up shown in picture 2. Notice the hard, unpleasant shadows beneath the model’s chin. It looks almost as though her head is separate from her neck.

To point a direct and undiffused flash at your subject is a pretty rotten thing to do. Straight flash has its place in newspaper, press-style photography, but not in portraiture. It can hurt your model’s eyes and creates sharp, hard, unpleasant and unflattering shadows. Results like this are the most common reason why so many photographers are completely put off using flash.

Next, in Part 2 - I’ll explain exactly how that photograph of the Venetian mask was done… and how to get more from your flash in other situations

Photographing Christmas

Okay, let’s get a bit festive and look at how to produce a couple of simple, atmospheric pictures this Christmas.

I put the camera on a tripod. A flash unit was hidden away on the fireplace behind the couple. I didn’t bother setting up flash synch cables or infra-red gizmos. I just got the young chap to fire the flash with his spare hand when I had the shutter open.
I used the ‘Bulb’ setting on the camera and fired the shutter with a cable release – the simple, sensible type that screws into the shutter button. This is the type that you can no longer use because the camera manufacturers have stopped putting the screw thread in the shutter button. Clever – now you have to buy expensive electronic release cable or silly remote controls (have you ever tried using one of those things outdoors in the wet on a bitterly cold night?). Ggrrrr!
I set the aperture to f11. ISO 100 was used. The shutter speed would have been around 2 seconds.

It is a big mistake to try and use wide apertures with this type of shot. Those small Christmas tree lights can often appear as fuzzy little blobs at wide apertures. The magic starts at f11 – just look at the sparkle around the candle on the mantle piece. You do not need star filters to get this – just stop down and use a slower shutter speed.

How to take indoor pictures without a tripod. Part 3

In the third short article about how to get interior pictures indoors without using a tripod, let's take a look at how we might use flash. A variety of techniques were used for flash in the ironmonger's shop.

Direct flash light, either from the camera's pop-up unit, or from a flash gun mounted on the camera, can be hard and unpleasant. Bouncing the flash off a wall or ceiling is common practice. But what do you do if there are no walls to bounce it off? Or the ceiling is far too high? All is not lost.

You can raise the quality of the light and soften it by swivelling the head of a flash mounted on the camera’s hot shoe to one side and angling the light to reflect off a piece of paper. Anything white will do. Just get your angle right. You can even aim the flash at a reflector held in one hand while holding the camera in the other hand – as in the picture above.

The stag's head was mounted high up on a wall in dark corner of the shop. Without a flash I could not have photographed it. The flash head was turned to aim at a sheet of paper held in my left hand. The flash has reached right up into the corner with a lovely soft light. Using one of those small box-type diffusers that clip over the flash will have little effect if there are no reflective walls or objects around the flash. The light will still be from a very small light source - and that's what gives hard shadows. If you think about it, the stag's head is lit by a light which is the size of the magazine pages - much better.

For the picture of the plant pots and shop interior, the camera was settled on a bag of dog food. I took the flash gun off the camera. A shutter speed of 2secs was used with the self timer. I fired off a couple of low-powered flashes by hand while the shutter was open. This added a little light into the shadows.

Shooting from behind the life-size dummy horse in the shop window and looking out into the street, the lighting contrast was very high and created only a silhouette image with little detail in the foreground. To counteract this I used the camera's pop-up flash, but reduced its output by –2 values... just enough to add detail and colour.

How to photograph sparks - Part 2

Exposure for this picture was simple. I just fixed a cable release to the camera, put it on a good firm tripod, set the aperture to f11 and the shutter speed to ‘Bulb’. There’s no point in trying to take a correct light reading because when the sparks start to fly it will be irrelevant. I set ISO 100.

When my subject was ready and producing sparks, I just pressed the button for about 1sec. You will need slow shutter speeds of at least 1/2sec in order to capture the full trail line of a spark – not just the dot of the spark itself. If you use a faster shutter speed you will just capture a series of frozen dots or very short spark trails. This is not in the least effective. Of course, you could use fixed shutter speeds rather than using the ‘Bulb’ setting, it’s just that I prefer my way. I like to ‘gather’ the sparks as they fall and spread. Then close the shutter when I think I have gathered enough.

I set the ISO at 100 because it is not necessary to set a fast ISO when you are using slow exposures and the camera is on a tripod. Remember - the slower ISO the better the quality and sharpness of your image.

Why f11? Because experience tells me that at ISO 100 sparks from a welder’s torch are just about right at f11. For sparks from a disc cutter or grinder, f8 is often best because they are not so bright. Experiment for yourself and see which you prefer.

Unlike the picture in Part 1, there was absolutely no ambient light for this picture. The workshop was completely black This time there is no light on top of the man’s head – his face is lit solely by the glow of the cutting torch and the sparks. In this darkness I could have left the shutter open as long as I wished – provided the subject kept his head still.

TIP… your auto focus will probably not work with this type of subject. Turn it off and set the focus manually.

Next, in Part 3, I’ll explain the ‘bulb’ setting and tell you how to add some flash

How to photograph night events. Part 2

It is sometimes possible to mix and match some of the three methods I mentioned in Part 1 with good results. For instance, you might use flash with a slow shutter speed. The duration of the flash is very short indeed and will freeze any action or movement. The slow shutter speed, however (maybe around 1/30sec or less), will cause the shutter to remain open long enough to capture some of the natural light. Any moving subject lit by this light will appear blurred. This creates a sort of double exposure – one for the flash and one for the available light. It is a technique that can prove highly effective and, if done properly, will inject a powerful sense of movement into the picture.

This was the first picture I took as darkness fell, the action really began. I upped the ISO to 400 and used flash for this picture. I set the shutter speed to 1/30sec and the aperture to f8. This combination has nicely balanced the flash with what little daylight remains in the sky. Had I used a faster shutter speed – say 1/125sec, the sky would have become almost black and the flash would have dominated. Notice how the reflective sign on the very left of the pictures has bounced the light of the flash back again. Beware of this if street signs are in your picture. This time it can be easily cropped off or cloned out.

A little bit of pre-planning can really pay dividends when covering a street event. You may have to decide between finding one good vantage point (see Part 1) from which you can photograph the entire event, or moving around the scene to shoot pictures of the action.

In the photograph on the right you can see that night has fallen. I have used a very slow shutter speed, 1/8sec with flash set to Rear Sync (sometimes called Rear Curtain). This fires the flash at the END of the exposure and creates trails behind any object in the image that moves while the shutter is open before the flash has fired. This can be an effective way of creating the sense of movement within your picture. Experiment - it's fun.


In Part 3: A little post-production work to create something special