Posts about Technique
After a break of almost two years, and a handful of small lighting courses both on location and in the studio, I’ve decided to organize another free day of photography and learning in the style of the Swiss Strobist days.
Tips on lighting, herding and photographing groups of people when time is limited.
I’ve been disappointed by the image quality of my landscape photographs from time to time, where the images viewed at full size on my computer screen at home are lacking in detail and very soft. However, I’ve also noted that the results vary from shoot to shoot and occasionally from shot to shot. Having reviewed…
I ran the latest of my photographic workshops last weekend and chose (mainly because of the time of year) to hold it in the studio. Thanks to the ready availability of the studio space at Satzart in Bern, we were able to use the spacious room to cover basic introduction to the Elinchrom equipment and…
I ran a course earlier in the year on the subject of portraiture and lighting, which was very well received by the attendees and which I really enjoyed organizing. I’ve been planning to run a similar photo course for a while now, and have decided that the next event will take place on the weekend…
Whilst presenting my One Frame Movie photos at the Open Show in Lausanne this week, I mentioned Gregory Crewdson. I first became aware of his work in 2008 via David Hobby’s blog and have admired his process ever since. He’s technically more of a film director than a photographer, albeit that the result of his…
I’m happy to announce that starting in June, I’ll be taking the Swisss Strobist workshops to the next level. Moving away from the previous days with large groups of attendees, I’ll be leading affordable half- and one day courses both on location and in the studio. Each course is specially prepared for photographers who have…
Sometimes, there’s more to a picture than meets the eye, and the natural surroundings need a little help. Whilst I do my best to eliminate fakery in my landscape and architectural photography, sometimes a little patience, lateral thinking and light use of Photoshop can work wonders.
Jo posed for me in the stairwell to an underground car park during last Sunday’s Swiss Strobist practical day, whilst I fiddled with the camera white balance to create an unusual effect.
When I first planned to hike to Bachalp above Grindelwald, I had envisaged not taking the photo above. However, the reception which the photo has received since posting it to Flickr has made me glad that I did.
I’ve tinkered with timelapse photography at several points over the past few years, and have begun to refine my technique using a digital SLR over the past few weeks. This article explains how, with an example sequence of a cruise ship leaving Invergordon in Scotland.
I’ve learned a lot about artificial lighting over the past few years and invested a great deal of time to hone my skill. However, I feel that it’s time to put the equipment to one side for a while and focus on using more natural light.
Shallow depth of field brings a special feeling to a photograph, altering scale and reality so it looks just a little unusual. By setting a wider aperture in your camera, the depth of field will become smaller and the areas nearer to and further away from the camera will be more and more out of…
I’ve been meaning to spend a little time to sit down and really get to grips with the High Dynamic Range editing process. For the unititiated, the HDR is a photo which contains detail within a much wider range of tones than is possible through an individual shot, from deep shadows to bright highlights.
After trying out the lighting technique I mentioned yesterday, of a large diffused light source right above the subject, I wanted to apply the technique to an outdoor location. When we set up the shots under cover in Interlaken (but outside), the first problem was that there were no suitably white walls to hand. If…
A friend asked me over the Christmas break how I manage to retain my drive for taking photos. I gave it some thought over the past few days and thought that my answer might be useful or interesting to other photographers or artists and so here it is.
An example of an image processed using a simple preset available through the Lightroom Presets website.
How I’ve hooked up my iPhone, laptop and stereo system to have a 50Gb wireless audio system at home.
Don’t you just hate it when you’ve been using the internet for a little while and you have a mass of browser windows to battle with? Where the hell did that website go, that you were looking at earlier? Both of these annoyances are entirely unnecessary, and this article explains why.
An unplanned shot, taken of volunteer Niels for the One Frame Movie set of photographs I was working on a few weeks back.