Marianna
Waiting to depart, Mariana relaxes awaiting her call. This photo was taken using three lights (one was overhead and aimed into the candles with a warming gel to create the “glow”) This photo comes from a periodic series of photos of dancers.
Charlie
This was an interesting portrait to take as it involved seven lights with careful metering of each to get the intended ratios. The main light was a Ring-flash which gives even and shadowless light to the face.
Courtney
This is Courtney – photographed recently in a big old warehouse, not that you can tell from this.
Experiments in black & white
Once again, less is more. In this case, a single light carefully positioned for effect. Nothing too fancy, but plenty interesting.
Working with low-key lighting
This picture is from a series taken with a single strip light behind and to one side of the model. Working with a single light is both easy and challenging – easy as there’s only one light to set up, but challenging in that very small movements can completely change the look-and-feel of the image. [...]
The Jimmy
Here’s another pic made with just a single softbox as the light source. In this case camera-right. I decided not to put the front diffusor on the softbox so it only used the white plastic disc over the flash head, and the intermediate diffusor half-way back in the box. This ensured the light was soft, [...]
Ashely channels Grace
I was working with model Ashely Jones recently, we had a great photo-shoot and once again the beauty of one-light was clear. While additional lights may have taken this in a more complete direction, the simple effect of a single light is not to be underestimated (in this case a 90 x 100 Elinchrom softbox)
Beauty and the Beast
This proved a tricky shoot – but in the end we made something of it. Steph is getting a tattoo from Tony – on her wedding day. Both of them proved great models, and Rafal worked his magic with Steph’s hair and makeup (Tony looked after himself, which means he had a coffee and a [...]
Whiteness
One of the great “looks” in fashion photography is a model against a white background. This has always been a favoured style, but in some ways the Internet has re-popularised it as a plain white background resolves well online, and it makes for clean integration on a web page that also uses white as [...]
London calling
Emily is a Sydney based ballerina currently studying in London. We arranged a series of photos for her fund-raising portfolio (tuition at this level does not come cheap). Using a nearby flower shop as the venue, we took a range of photos – some of which were enlarged to very big prints with outstanding [...]
Graceful lines
Niki presents some classical poses for a cover shoot. Using simple lighting techniques and straightforward poses we created a number of graceful images that met the brief. Things don’t need to be complicated to make strong images – and how do you know if an image is “strong”? Well if it makes you feel something emotional, then it’s probably [...]
A study in the masters: CS Ball
Following my attempts to emulate Irving Penn, Helmut Newton and Richard Avedon, this photo is based on the work of C.S. Ball. Fill-light bounced off card in front of model and below camera, soft boxes from rear left and rear right. ISO 25. High res version from Sinar. Clarence Sinclair Bull. b. 1896, d. 1979, [...]
A study in the masters: Penn
An attempt inspired by American photographer Irving Penn’s series known as The Trades. Penn was a master of simple light and careful composition. Although he used studio flash (as was used here, one softbox feathered to left background and one camera right ro subject, triggered by PW), Penn was also famous for using window light [...]
A study in the masters: Newton
This photo is based on the work of Helmut Newton. It kind of drifted from Newton’s sometimes stark lighting, but ended up being a fun shoot. Helmut Neustädter (b. 1920, Berlin, Germany – d. 2004, West Hollywood, California, USA) was a German-Australian fashion photographer noted for his nude studies of women. During WWII Newton [...]
A study in the masters: Avedon
This photo is based on the work of Richard Avedon. b. 1923, d. 2004, USA. In 1944, Avedon began working as an advertising photographer, but was quickly discovered by Harper’s Bazaar and began providing images for magazines including Vogue and Life. Avedon is equally renowned for his photographs of celebrities and the non-famous. In [...]
