Eric Hamilton – Celebrity / DJ / Nightlife Photographer

Archive for May, 2009

A horde of pole-dancing, hula-hooping, record spinning zombies descended on Basecamp in Salt Lake City, Utah Saturday evening. Very few Basecamp patrons survived the ensuing carnage to see the sun rise in the morning.

Here are some techniques that came in handy for this event:

Use loooong shutter speeds – Try 1/2 – 1/25th of a second. In dark rooms, light is hard to come by. Keep the shutter open to let ambient light saturate the frame. When using flash as the key-light, the quick-firing flash strobe will freeze the action for you, so don’t worry too much about motion blur.

Use LOW ISO – I know it seems logical that you’d want to bump the ISO up in low-light, but doing so will introduce ugly digital noise – and when you’re in a dark environment that requires a flash key-light anyway, high ISO settings serve no purpose whatsoever. After all, you’re creating the main light source. You can set the ISO as low as it goes.

Get the flash off the camera – I know it’s more convenient to pop your flash in your hot-shoe when you’re running and gunning at an event, but trust me – pulling the flash off the camera gives you more creative opportunities for controlling the angle of the light. You can achieve many unique looks, rather than the same flat look you see all the time from less adventurous nightlife photographers.

For larger groups, get the flash farther back – The farther back the light is, the more evenly it will be distributed.

Use a zoom lens – In tight quarters (such as a packed crowd), you’re going to have to get in close, and that means using a wide angle lens – but sometimes you’ll want to zoom in for close-ups of the action.

Find an interesting event to photograph – What’s better than sexy zombies? You tell me! Whatever it is, go find it.

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One of the promo shots I did for DJ:K was featured on the cover of In Utah This Week yesterday. I love shooting promo photos on location. I’m teaching a location portrait workshop in Southern Utah June 11th – 14th. In’s Amanda Chamberlain wrote a nice blurb about the workshop on their blog. Thanks, Amanda! Come join us for fun in the sun, Southern Utah style. It’s gonna be a blast.

In most cases, when you put a person in front of a camera that they’re aware of, they don’t automatically open up and reveal their soul for you. Many are harboring deep-rooted insecurities, or they simply lack the experience to understand how to pose and how to smile naturally. When I asked my long-time friend Annie to model for me, her initial reaction was skeptical. “I’m not photogenic!” I told her I’d make the best photos of her she’s ever seen or I’d eat my shoe, so she reluctantly agreed.

Annie can be a bit of a tom boy. She has spent her recent days digging around the guts of her car. She doesn’t have a huge wardrobe, rarely wears dresses, and owns very little makeup. She’s about as far from the model world as it gets. I wanted to expose her feminine side. I think we found it.

When you’re working with a model who isn’t a model, be prepared to put some real time into the shoot, and make sure that you don’t bury yourself in the camera and forget to engage with them. Here are some tips to get you started:

Avoid criticism – Nothing can shut down a model faster than criticsm. Instead of being critical of what they’re doing, give them direction. Ask them to do something new. Change things up.

Praise them – If you get a great shot, smile at your model – let it show that you like how things are going. They’ll be excited about the pictures, and they’ll relax and open up more.

Keep them engaged – Don’t loose yourself in the camera. Keep your eyes on your model as much as possible. Maintain eye contact. Let them feel like a collaborator. It has to be more about them than you.

Spend time with them – I spend a lot of time talking to the models before the shoot. I’m involved in the makeup, styling, and wardrobe phase of the photo shoot, and if I’ve never met the model before, this is the time I spend getting to know who she is. You can gain valuable insights about the model’s personality and interest that will help your creative process. I like to spend a lot of time shooting, too. The shoots themselves generally last at least a couple hours once the model gets in front of the camera. Eventually they forget the camera is there, and you get to see glimpses of real personality.

Watch for key moments – Keeping up your guard is hard work. Everybody drops their guard now and then – sometimes only for a split second. If your camera isn’t ready or you’re spending all your time looking at your previous shots, you’ll miss them. Capturing unguarded moments is what portraiture is all about.

Once you get your lights right, it’s time to stop thinking about technical issues, and start thinking about the person in front of you. In the end, it’s not about the light, or composition. These are just the tools we use to capture the subject.

Come learn more about portraiture at the Southern Utah Location Portrait Workshop June 11th-14th near Zion National Park.