As a portrait photographer, this is something I struggle(d) with at every shoot.  Especially early in my career.  I was easily known to shoot 500, 600 or more frames.  The end result was necessarily better pictures, but a too long session and whole lot of post processing work.  Now why did I do it?  Basically, inexperience coupled with the idea that more is better.  Also, I figured I’d get a few enough good pictures if I shot a load.  I believe the term for this is ‘spray and pray’, lol.

I know this is technical Thursday and you may be expecting me to talk gear, lighting, etc.  I understand, those things are very important, vital as a matter of fact.  It’s just that I’ve found my biggest challenges shooting a session is cerebral.  What do you do if the light’s not falling on your client’s face correctly or your client asked for something unplanned for or unexpected.  Are you able to think on your feet?  Have you hone your craft enough to handle the situation?  It wouldn’t matter if you had $15,000-$20,000 worth of equipment at your disposal, (Nikon d3x, a $8,000 camera with a Nikon 70-200mm lens ($2,500) with pocket wizards, Profoto lighting, Larson sofboxes, etc.), if you don’t understand how to get the correct exposure for your scene.  Your picture will not come out as you envisioned or like.  In this circumstance, an inexperience phototgrapher MAY just start shooting, alot, hoping one or two of the photographs come out right.

Side note, I actually got a chance to shoot a famous old school R&B group this past Saturday.  When I booked the session, all I knew was a band wanted some headshots, group shots, and portraits done in downtown Atlanta, GA.  No problem I’m thinking.  When I get there, I find out it’s one of the groups I listened too growing up as a teenager.  Man, what a surprise.  Really nice guys.  Them and their team.

Guess what, these are professional.  They were on a tight deadline.  I ended up shooting three setups, two outfit changes, four individuals and as a well as group shots. Both indoors and outdoors in two hours at a location I never been to before, with people looking over my shoulder.  No pressure at all, lol.  (Not even going to mentioned the technical issues.  Let’s just say, if you don’t have a second body and your a professional, get one.  Don’t mater what it is.  Get the best that you can afford.)  In all, I didn’t shoot any one look more than 10 frames. As little as 2 or 4 usually.  That means I had to get my setup right the first time and nail the shot.  Very interesting experience.

My challenge to myself and to you is learn to shoot no more than 36 frames per look as Jason talks about.  Learn the discipline of less is more, Quality not Quanity.  Now, I’m not talking when your experimenting, practicing, or just having fun. (though you will need to practice shooting 36 frames to get use to it).  But when the game is on and your client is in front of you.  Nail that look in 36 frames or less.

As always, please leave comments.  Let’s all learn from your experiences.

Peace and Love to all,

Mark

Shot with a Nikon D300 and Sigma 105mm.  I balanced the shady ambient light with a strobe, portable battery, and a 64″ parbolic umbrella with silver interior.

Model: Britani Nolan

Designer: Ben Almonor

Makeup Artist: Patrice Story, MakeupByPatrice

Photographer: Mark Mason, MD Mason Photography

I’m so glad you decided to join me for this posting of Tips and Techniques Thursday.

This tips actually came from Zack Arias.  I was watching his presentation on CreateLIVE a couple months back.  Zack spoke for three days about all things photography.  That was a great event.  Zack is one on my favorite photographers.   Many of the following notes come from the broadcast or Zack’s show notes.  Gotta give credit where credits due.

Zack stressed that you have to know your gear.  How it operates.  When to use it.  Why you would need it.  Following are a few of the items that was discussed during the presentation.

Know you dials by feel.  During a shoot is not the time trying to figure out what your buttons do or where things are in your menu.  Trust me, you’ll feel a little embarrassed and stressed out if you don’t.

Know your reciprocals (F-stops vs shutter speed vs ISO).  If you have to change your aperture from 5.6 to 7.1.  Know automatically what your new shutter speed/ISO would be to get the same exposure.  There’s no easy way to learn this, you just have to commit them to memory.

Example: Aperture + Shutter = Reciprocals

• 2.8 @ 500th
• 4 @ 250th
• 5.6 @ 125th
• 8 @ 60th
• 11 @ 30th

Shutter Speed - Memoerize these!

• 8000th • 4000th • 2000th • 1000th • 500th • 250th • 125th • 60th • 30th • 15th • 8th • 4th • 1/2sec • 1sec

Aperture – Memorize these!

• 1.4 • 2 • 2.8 • 4 • 5.6 • 8 • 11 • 16 • 22
• The larger the opening, the shallower DoF.
• Know what your lens will give you.  Understand why you would use a 70-200mm for one look but use a 35m for another.

Test your ISO performance.  One day, setup your camera and shoot the same object through your entire ISO range.  Afterwards, review the results on the computer and decide what ISO is exceptable as far as noise.  Now, when your out in the field, you’ll understand what noise this ISO on YOUR camera will give you and if its okay for this shot.

As artist, we love to be creataitive.  However, if your still trying to figure our how to operate your gear.  Spending precious brains cells trying to figure out where certain controls are, you are not being creative.  However, if your gear are tools you have mastered, then you’ll have one less distraction to deal with while your with your client and be able to quickly and efficiently solve problems.

STATS

Model: Morgan Camille

Makeup Artist:  Kenya Robinson

Location: MD Mason Photography Studio

Lighting:

• Technique: High Key
• Background, White seamless with two Alienbee b800 pointed at the backgrond.  Both in 9′ x 36″ stripboxes.
  Main light was a Alioenbee Einstein in a Westcott Apollo 50″ softbox camera left.
• Fill: Bounced a Nikon sb-800 off a rear wall camera right.

Post Processing: Converted to Black and White using Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5

I hope that everyone has been having a productive week.  This week tech post will focus on outdoor portrait photography using minimal gear.

Image Concept:
The idea was to a sexy, provocative scene with the subject in swimwear outdoors in the wilderness using the minimalist gear approach.

Subject:
Alexis Madison

Location:
Sweet Water Creek State Park, Lithia Springs Ga.

What’s in the bag:
Nikon D300
Nikon 50mm f1.8
Nikon sb-800 gelled with ¼ CTO
Lumiquest Softbox III
X-Rite Colorchecker

Camera Settings:
Image captured in RAW
ISO 320
F5 @ 1/250 sec
PP: NX2, LR3, CS5,
Flash Manual ¼ power
On-camera flash: TTL -1.7

Technique (What did I do and why did I do it?):
Its two fold.  First, I wanted to try out a piece of gear I’ve had for a couple years, but never really used; The Lumiquest Softbox III.  It’s a small 8” x 9” softbox that fits onto your speedlight.  The idea was to go out and shoot without a stand.  Just me, my camera, and the Lumiquest III attached to my sb-800 in my left hand.  The flash would be triggered by Nikon’s CLS system using the on camera flash. Second, the original concept was to shoot my subject in a bathing suit in the small rapids of the lake.  Well, since I was doing this lone ranger style, I really had no desire to try to manage a stand in the water to hold my lights.  However, I did want the option of using a flash if I so choose.

The inspiration for this technique came from reading David Hobby’s Strobist Blog.  Click here to read the blog post.

As you see by the pictures, Alexis is not in the water.  As it turned out, we ended up only having about a 30 minutes window to shoot.  With so little time, there wasn’t any way to get from the parking lot down to the water, shoot, and then get back to the cars.  So we improvised.  We walked down the trail about 50 yards, found a decent spot, and started shooting.  Yes, I was feeling a little pressure because I was attempting a new technique in a very compressed time period.  I started out setting the flash to straight TTL.  However, the images were coming out underexposed and a little too unpredictable for my taste.  So, I changed to manual, kept taking test shots until I got what I wanted.  The whole time my brain’s internal clock is ticking.  I guess I need to go and reread my post from last week, “Be Cool“

Conclusion

Overall, I was pleased with this setup.  It is very mobile portable.  We were able to move quickly from spot to spot without any issues.  The Lumiquest did a decent job covering ¾ length shots.  I’ll have to try this again, when I can take more time and really run it through its paces.  But for now, I plan on keeping it in my bag for location shoots.

This is my inaugural Tips and Technique Thursday blog post.  These posts will be aimed at portrait photographers because that’s what I primarily shoot.  As I expand portfolio to weddings, events, etc., the content of the blog will grow along with it.  My plan is to provide information based both on my personal experiences and the experiences of others.  I also incourage you to give plenty of comments, ideas, and feedback.  That way we all can learn from a broader set of people.

Before we get started on todays topic, I like to remind everyone of my August Boudoir Photo Session Special.   Check out my flyer for all the details.

Be Cool – My number one tip.

Be cool?  What does it mean?  As photographers, we love to talk gear, lighting, composition, styles, locations, etc.  In other words technical stuff.  However, when its time to actually shoot.  When you have your real live, breathing, talking subject in front of your camera, waiting expectantly, all that technical stuff in our brains seems to have left the building.

What just happened?  You simply got nervous. You don’t want to look foolish in front of the subject(s).  So instead of taking a minute and getting it right in camera, you sprayed and prayed (just shoot a bunch of pictures and praying you get a good shot).

Well Mark.  This have happened to me.  What can I do about it? Glad you asked.  Here are my top five tips.

1. Plan out your shoot.  On a piece of paper, write some notes on what you wish to accomplished.  It can include a shot list, lighting diagrams, explanation of concept(s), who will be there, location, etc.
2. Create a pose book/folder for your subject to review.  The  book/folder can be print outs from the internet or cut pictures out of magazines.  Pick out a few poses to try and stick with those.  Of course once you do the base pose, have the subject make small variations to the pose.
3. Clean and test your equipment before the subject gets there.  Don’t forget to put in fresh batteries.
4. If you a new photographer or testing out a new technique.  Let the subject know what’s going on before they agree to shoot.  If you says, “hey, i’m working on ‘high key’ photography, do you mind being my subject?  “I’m testing out new equipment and I’m not sure how everything will turn out.”  This will manage everyone’s expectations.
5. When something goes amiss (and it will), take a deep breath and  stop shooting.  Explain to to your subject, you need to make some adjustments, and calmly do it.  Take it one step at a time.  If the technique just doesn’t work, scrap it and do something else.  At the end of the day.  I rather get a few good shots then shoot a bunch of pics I know won’t work.

Bonus Tip:  Keep shooting.  Keep shooting.  Keep shooting.  Did I mention you need to keep shooting? Experience is king (or queen).  Something you just can’t get by buying, talking or reading about it.

If you have any other ideas to share, please post them in the comments below.  I would love to here from you.

I believe in capturing the beauty and strengh of my clients.  I love black and white and decided to convert this one.  Please feel free to leave me comments and let me know what you think.  I would love to here from you.

My plan is to post twice a week on Monday’s and Thursdays.  Though I’m a little behind this week.

Yolanda Smith known as Ms. China is a woman of God, wife, mother, entrepreneur, motivational speaker and beauty consultant. She is the owner of Unique Faces Make-Up Studio LLC, and the founder of ‘Thick Is the New Sexy’ Organization they are both based out of Atlanta Ga.

Yolanda founded, ‘Thick Is the New Sexy’, which is an organization dedicated to promoting the positive side of being a plus size woman.’ Thick Is the New Sexy’ is to encourage, educate, promote and motivate plus size women to be comfortable in the skin they’re in.

Their Mission is:
To teach, listen and encourage Women to love themselves no matter what size you are as well as being healthy, while helping ALL women & girls build their self-esteem, healthy relationships and their personal lives.

You can contact Ms. China at:

www.thickisthenewsexy.com

www.uniquefacesstudio.com

The images were taken in the hallway in front of her business.

Strobist Info:
Main – FL Gelled Sb-800 in a 24″ Gridded Ezybox SOftbox Camera Right
Fill: FL Gelled SB-800 in a ePhoto 16″ Silver Beauty Dish on Axis.
Triggered: AB Cybersyncs
Camera: Nikon D300
WB: FL
PP: Colorchecker, Lightroom 3.4, CS5, Nik Software, Portraiture