Posts from the category Photographic technique
“Kelbification”
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After seeing a few shots around the internet in a certain darkened, de-saturated style, I asked around to see if anyone was familiar with the post-processing technique which is used to create it.
Date selected for Swiss Strobist day in Lausanne
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The date for the next Swiss Strobist photographic meetup in Lausanne (Switzerland) has been selected.
Modelling tip number one: don’t hide
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If you want to take a photo of someone else that they’ll be happy with, or if you’re being photographed, then here are the most important non-technical tips to remember.
Stay away from the “Delete” button
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By whittling down pictures while you are still shooting, or when you are trying to assess their merits on a tiny little screen, you always run the risk of deleting a shot which later turns out to be one you really like.
Light in the darkness
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With the arrival of warmer weather and longer, sunnier evenings, I am able to begin using a technique which works in many places with dark, deep shadows and small patches of bright sunlight. Here are a few examples and a description of how to achieve this kind of shot. The shots in this article are
Alien abduction
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That was the idea, anyway. I’ve been inspired by Nick Turpin’s street shots, using high, undiffused strobes, and have been experimenting on and off with the technique. This is a shot from this evening in the woods near my home, which uses a single flashgun on a 3 metre stand out of shot to the
My Mamiya
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I arranged to go to the bi-annual photographic market in Bern this weekend with Beat, to see what accessories we can find for our medium-format cameras. Being tired last night, at the end of a tiring day and long week, I forgot completely that the market is on Sunday, not Saturday. Unfortunately, I only realised
One of those laptop shots
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A work colleague, backlit by the sun coming in through the window, flash laid on keyboard and bounced from laptop screen at 1/8 power to give f 2.8 at ISO 100. Fill-in flash from camera right at 1/1 power (losing 2 stops due to diffusion). And a little bit of dark vignette added during post-processing
Let your steps be velvet
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Henri Cartier-Bresson, on the topic of the photographer’s intrusion on everyday life. Poetic, apposite and worth remembering. …approach the subject on tiptoe, even if it is a still life. Let your steps be velvet but your eye keen; a good fisherman does not stir up the water before he starts to fish…refrain from snapping rapidly
Security threat
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Not a great photo, but I’m posting it in order to wind up a security guard and highlight the photographic policy in the Wellgate shopping centre in Dundee. Moments after taking this, I was accosted and asked what I was doing. This photo is dangerous material, as I could’ve been taking this shot of the
Swiss Strobist meetup on 21st September
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We’re planning a day/afternoon of photography on the ETH Campus at Hönggerberg in Zürich, on Sunday 21st September. We’re planning on separating into a couple of groups, with one or more experienced strobist photographer/s with a group of people eager to learn. We’ll set up a couple of shots, explain the lighting setup and then
Inexpensive still-life photography
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This Lladró statue, designed by Francisco Català, was a gift from my parents and fits well with my photographic tendencies. It is also a great test piece for studio photography, so when I was looking to test flash technique this evening (in particular, soft lighting) it was immediately brought out. The statue is around 13″
Strobism in the old city of Bern
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I’ll be photographing a band in Bern at the end of next week with a couple of friends and so Jo and I headed to Bern last weekend to scout out some locations. We headed for the lower, older part of the city below Kornhausplatz and wandered down through Rathausgasse, stopping off at St. Peter
