Eric Hamilton – Celebrity / DJ / Nightlife Photographer

Posts Tagged ‘photography’

Get Your Flash off Your Camera

There are many ways to do that. For the basics, head over to the Strobist.com. Nikon shooters can use Nikon CLS. You’ll need SB-600, 800, 900 flashes and a D80 or better. Check your manual for “commander mode”.

Canon and other shooters, there are a range of external solutions, ranging from Cactus V2 triggers to PocketWizards. Each solution really needs its own tutorial, so I won’t go into setup details here.

Shoot With An Assistant

Many wedding photographers employ assistants who do everything from help keep track of important guests to holding reflectors for posed portraits. Why shouldn’t you have an assistant at a nightlife event? I am very grateful for the dedicated help of Tania on this shoot. She held the second flash, which let me capture multiple light angles. Most of the edge highlights above were lit by Tania, standing behind and to one side of the subject. In some cases, she provided the off-axis key light that helped me light part of the subject’s face, instead of even all-over lighting you get from the camera angle. The band photos are good examples of that technique. Tania lit most of those from camera left while I shot from the right side of the stage.

Use Multiple Light Sources

In most of these shots, I used two flashes – a key light (a flash that I held in my left hand), and a second flash held by an assistant (see above). In several shots, the ambient light also contributed in some ways to the subject exposure. You can see hints of that in some of the blurrier photos. I was using long shutter speeds to let some of the ambient light into the exposure. Employing multiple light angles serves to create more three dimensional images, which is why these photos tend to pop a little more than the average point-and-shoot shot. Multiple light angles sculpt and define curves, angles, and dimensions, adding loads of depth to a photograph.

When you drag the shutter long enough to create a color wash in the background, you can even flatten the background while your flashes sculpt the image in the foreground. This creates separation by placing your 3d-looking subject on a flat-looking backdrop. Talk about POP…

Drag the Shutter

I’ve said it many times before – when you’re out in a club, it’s fun to capture the colored lighting all around you. In these shots, the washes of red, orange, yellow, and blue are only visible because of the slow shutter speeds, ranging anywhere from 1/25th to a full second in length. This technique is called dragging the shutter. When you’re shooting with flash, think of the flash as the key light – your primary exposure. You control that with the flash power and aperture. Your background exposure comes from ambient light, and you control that with shutter speed.

With really long shutter speeds, you can even create light paintings by dragging the shutter and moving the camera while there are light sources in the frame. See the light streaks in a few of the DJ photos here for examples.

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

More portrait tips. I’m going to keep these coming as I work up curriculum for the upcoming Southern Utah Location Portrait Workshop and the University of Utah Life Long Learning Flash Photography course I’m teaching in the fall.

Aside from being a beautiful model, Ruth is a promising young photographer who interned with me for a semester. She is building a studio in her house. One of the questions she had for me was how to prevent wrinkles in the black sheets she uses from ruining her photos. You don’t have to have a fancy studio seamless setup to get beautiful black backgrounds. Any dark colored fabric, paper, or wall will do. The less reflective the material is, the less you’ll have to worry about wrinkles or other imperfections showing up in your photo.

It’s all about light control. What you want to do is get the light on your subject, and not on the background. There are many ways to do just that. In these examples, I used a bounce umbrella with a black backing, tilted away from the background, towards the camera. This creates a narrow pool of soft light for the model, so light placement becomes even more critical than it usually is (and it’s always important).

Every lighting setup has a sweet spot where the model should stand – all the lights are directed to make sure that whatever is in that sweet spot looks its best. The more controlled your lighting is, the smaller that sweet spot becomes. Keep that in mind and remember to direct the model accordingly.

Point the light where you want it, away from where you don’t. – If you want a dark background, you don’t want to be pointing a light at it. This sounds obvious, but it’s easy to forget.

Mind reflections – During our shoot Ruth wanted to look in a mirror to help her pose. Without thinking I agreed. Of course, the mirror reflected the light back and destroyed the test shot. Make sure you’re aware of anything that might reflect light back where you don’t want it to be. It’s easy to forget that wearing a white shirt can fill shadows that you really want black if there’s light aimed towards the camera position.

Use a snoot – In these shots I used a snooted strobe to create highlights without casting light on the background. A snoot is any conical shaped tunnel to confine the light beam for a narrow point of focus. It doesn’t have to be fancy. I use the velcro pocket separators from my camera bag. I know photographers who use cardboard cereal boxes to make DIY snoots.

Use grids and honeycombs – Grids and honeycombs are another method to control the directionality of your light.

Hang a flag – I often use strips of fabric to cast shadows and prevent light from spilling to where I don’t want it.

Use a cookie – A cookie refers to anything intentionally placed between the flash and the subject to cast shadows. I’ve used house plants, blinds, grids, etc… You can focus or blur the edges of the shadows by moving the cookie closer to or farther from the light source.

Control light colors – In the reclining shots above, I used a low-powered flash to fill shadows on the left of the frame with a red glow by shooting the flash through transparent red fabric. You can use strips of plastic called gels for the same purpose.

Strobist Info (First shot only) – SB-600 bounced off small black-backed umbrella camera right, positioned just behind model and aimed away from background to control light spill. SB-600, snooted, behind and above model, for edge highlights and fabric definition. SB-600 gelled using transparent red fabric, camera left, slightly behind model, for red glow effect, doubles as the light source for the background.

Click through the photos to see additional strobist info and EXIF data on Flickr. I recently started including Adobe Lightroom development settings in the EXIF. Feel free to take a look.