Eric Hamilton – Celebrity / DJ / Nightlife Photographer

Posts Tagged ‘how to’

When you’re out shooting, it’s important to understand how the technical choices you make effect the look and style of your photography. All of these photos carry my general style signature – light that sculpts and defines as opposed to flattens, well defined subject isolation, strong contrast and color saturation. These are all elements that can be found in a lot of my photos, but there are still big style differences from one photo to the next, depending on the subject and the mood I’m trying to capture. My friend Keldwud said it best: “The Lens sees what the heart sees.”

Soft Light for Soft Features – Most professional studio photographers use soft light to shoot portraits, because it creates a smoother look. It’s more flattering to skin than hard light, which can emphasize skin textures a little too much at times. I pulled out a small umbrella for some of the shots above. I was particularly interested in using it for the shots of Julliette, to emphasize her femininity.

Hard Light for Drama – I used hard light for the male DJs to create dramatic contrast. Hard light casts sharper shadow edges, and I used it here to create excitement.

Paint With Light – I used a couple different light painting techniques to incorporate the neon lights in the background of the photos and make them an integral part of the composition, rather than a distraction. To reproduce this technique, you’ll need to use a long exposure (my times were hovering around 1/8th – 1/15th), and combine it with flash to freeze the features of the photo you want to be clear. Once you get playing with this technique, you’ll see you can create many styles with it, as well. For Julliette, I used smooth, directional camera strokes for the light painted elements. For the male DJ’s, I created sharper lines by moving the camera in more jerky motions – twisting and zooming the lens with jerky stops.

Change Focal Length – As you can see in some of the DJ photos, I got in really close with a short focal length in order to create perspective distortion – like Scott Evol’s long arm in the bottom photograph. With Julliette, I did the opposite. I used long focal lengths to keep her facial features looking natural and elegant. I wanted to emphasize her beauty and femininity. She’s all woman, playing in a male-dominated playground. I wanted to tell the story visually that she brings a special vibe to the mix.

There are a million ways to shoot any subject. Let your heart and your moods guide you to select the right composition, the right light, the right focal length, and the right style. Don’t bother trying to be objective. There’s no such thing. We all see the world differently. Don’t be afraid to show us what you see.

View the Full Set

I gave a talk on Abode Lightroom at the SparkArts: Digital Arts Festival. Here is the talk online… be sure to click the link at the bottom to watch all seven parts:

View the full talk at YouTube

All due respect to David Hobby, who called this technique Strobe on a Rope, I shoot wireless infra-red via Nikon’s CLS (Creative Lighting System).

If I had a dime for every time I’ve described how I handle light on nightlife shoots, I’d never need to shoot again. In case you are not one of the 17,000 people I’ve told… here’s a photo for you (thanks to Salt Lake After Dark for the photo). Mount your strobe to the end of a tripod or monopod (I prefer the tripod because I can set it down and trust it to be stable if I want different light angels), aim the light where you want it, and shoot. It’s that easy. That funky thing on the end is a Gary Fong Lightsphere Cloud Diffuser. There are a lot of pundits on Flickr who make fun of Gary Fong and his products, but diffusers work. They scatter and spread the light around, make everything a bit more evenly lit, and having one on a tilt/swivel flash makes it really easy to tweak your exposure by shining more or less light on your subject with a twist of the flash head. It takes some practice, but eventually becomes second nature.