Eric Hamilton – Celebrity / DJ / Nightlife Photographer

I’m prepping discussion topics for the location portrait workshop I’m teaching in Southern Utah June 11th – 14th. Here are some tips from today’s session:

Mix light colors – In the strobist world, you frequently hear about how to balance your flash color to ambient light using gels and the color temperature setting on your camera, but light color doesn’t always have to be matchy-matchy. In these shots I mixed the gold color from a reflector with flash and hints of direct and indirect sunlight.

Create contrast by overpowering the sun – I used a combination of open shade and a relatively fast shutter speed (1/640th) to dial back the sunlight and let the flash take the key light role in these photos. In direct sun, you’ll need a shutter speed in the thousands, but it’s still doable with the right equipment. I have successfully over-powered sunlight shooting at 1/4000th using ordinary SB-600′s. Using this technique, it’s possible to dial back the ambient light enough to create dramatic contrasts and bold color saturation.

Soften the light – I used a small shoot-through umbrella to soften the key light. When you’re shooting outside with an umbrella, it’s wise to weight the light stand so that it won’t go tipping over at the slightest gust of wind. I have a hanging counterweight for my boom stand that I fasten to the light stand in these situations. In nature, there’s usually one hard light source (the sun), and everything else is soft, reflected light.

Use a long focal length I shot all of these photos with the 50mm f/1.8, but if I had an 80mm lens handy, I probably would have used it. Outside, you have plenty of space to get farther back from the model. Take advantage of it to minimize perspective distortion. Think 50-120mm. I know a portrait photographer who always shoots at 200mm, but in my experience, 120mm is about the upper edge of the sweet spot. Once you go beyond that, you generally need a tripod to minimize blur from camera shake, and it gets more difficult to define the image with a shallow DoF effect.

Take lots of photos! – There are a lot of things you need to get right in a photo. Light, pose, expression, composition – it takes a lot of practice to master the art of tuning in to get the shot. So get practicing. Shooting digital, there’s no reason not to take as many photos as you want. Your model will love the attention, and you’ll love the result.

Speaking of models, Lydia is my sister-in-law. This was her second second time shooting with a professional photographer. She did a great job. Thanks, Lydia!

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