God's light

First of all, this is not a hey let me shove my views down your throat session. The reason I named this blog to what I did is because of the lighting, every time I see a picture of God or a god in general you always see this peaking out light.

How I got this photo is a funny story. I am sure you guys know, I still do not have an LCD screen on my camera. Which sucks. However, I was on a set with a girl who paid me to help her develop her portfolio and learn how to pose and get more expressions. I usually will demostrate to, I am a visual learner myself. We had agreed on a country girl look with ambient sunlight, give her that dreamy look and some sunset bikini work. before the shoot, she had mentioned she was a cheerleader and wanted to show off her body.

So after getting all the details set in stone, we meet up at 7 P.M. and get into her first outfit which was simple we shot for about 45 minutes in some cowgirl looking stuff, including a white dress. About 8 or so we started walking back to her car and I noticed the clouds so the colors started coming out, and full sunset was at 835 so we got a crackin on the shooting. Her first swimsuit was a white one, we shot about 30 shots in that, then switched to a hot pink swimsuit. While she was changing I noticed the beams of light coming through and wanted to get a shot, which I did. I was not sure how it would come out because of the LCD thing. When I got home I got this.

The reason I was not sure what I would get is because your camera and eye are 2 totally seperate things, your eyes can see like 65 bazillion colors and your camera can only see 64k or so, when shooting in RAW, when shooting in JPEG 2,500 or so. Your lens, depending on which one, at most 6 stops of light, your eyes, 14 stops of light. Now how cool would it be to make lenses out of eyeballs? I think I am onto something here, instead of pixels reading the info there will be rods and cones. Just because my eye saw this, does not mean my camera did, and I just so happened to get it.

You ever wonder why your eyes can see the pinks in sunsets? But when you perfectly expose a sunset it is white? Listen to you eyes, and underexpose by 2 to 4 stops for sunsets.

Harsh light, wolfie what the f&*&?!

Lately I have been using a lot of harsh light, and people think I am nuts. Well I am an artist, so that is a good thing, no artist is normal. Well harsh light kicks ass, if you can use it right, I love it personally and it is my style! But learning how to use it was always a challenge.

I am primarily a location shooter, personally studio work is boring to me unless you are doing something like nudes. But I also do live in Oklahoma, where the wind blows! After several torn up softboxes and lights, and hearing of photographers horror stories, I decided to use a bare SB800. I had used it once prior before my last 4 shoots, and it was with a local photographer named Kevin Camp. Well I say local, but he is really in Tulsa, Oklahoma. But it was such a wide angle stobist style with a model named Traci Lacek, I never thought about ever using it again. But I do love being a strobist, why I am a starving artist, a successful starving artist I might add. But the thought of the sundial shadow, and the hot spots on the models skin or even blown highlights. A big no no in photography. I decided I would give it a try. The first shoot I did with harsh light was a formal dress, I had the flash too close models face got blown out, and you will never see those photos (and I thank God everyday I had a few good ones) and was like, well I will need practice.

I had a shoot a week later, she wanted some sunset stuff done, with a maxi dress, and I was fretting about lighting again. I had always used a modifier. Than it hit me like a brick wall, as if I were running 100 mph. Chuck Majors, www.shotbyephoto.com, had apparently used harsh light a lot! Everyone always says that he does, so I decided to Facebook him one day and ask him if he really did, of course like any good photographer, he said he did depending on the situation. So I asked him for his advice, he said with speed lights back it off about 10 feet, and about eye level, maybe a little higher and do not go over a quarter power. So I kept that in mind. Well the shoot comes up, I have no LCD on my camera, and I am nervous as hell, so she got into the dress and I got ready and went at f8 to control the flash, flash at a quarter power, and 200th of a second shutter speed to kill the ambient (ever want a dramatic sunset? underexpose!!!)  backed it off about 10 feet, that I counted, and started shooting. Not knowing what I was going to get, I got a great surprise when I got home, and I think I like it. Makes the models skin look smoother, harsh contrast, and well the wind blowing isn't going to break a bunch of stuff.

Almost NO editing.