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I’ll be honest – there’s a morbidly curios  side of me that would LOVE to take a course from somebody that is this oblivious as to their own lack of ability. Too bad I don’t live in the UK lol.

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There was no disrespect intended as far as shooting in program mode was concerned, more a guess on my part as the camera chose the small aperture because of the flash being used. All the modes have there place  – don’t listen to the “manual only” shooters is my advice. Hell, Joe Buissink shoots mostly in program mode and what does he know, right?

 

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So much of learning photography  nowadays is spent on the technical aspects of the camera (shutter speed iso aperture), and also the “rules” so to speak,  such as rule of thirds or filling the frame etc. I see very little on the basics of light. Most of the togs posting for critique  to this site photograph people, and most of them all have the same fundamental problem – poor light, or their inability to recognize it. But hey, they put the person off to one side (rule of thirds), and shot wide open to blur the background(aperture).

Looking at the Lee family shots, the little girl holding the pink soccer ball is probably the best shot lighting wise because of a few reasons. The light appears soft, and by tilting her head up you opened up her face and eyes to it as well.  There’s also a nice back light or “kicker” from the sun hitting the left side of her head which helps with separation from the background.  Add a great smile and you have a very nice photograph.

Looking at the family photos, that’s were things fall apart. As Coastaltog said,  some sort of fill flash or reflector is needed to even out the exposure when your background is much brighter than your subjects. My suggestion is to find an area where the background is the same or darker than your subjects, and that’s where understanding light will help. As far as shooting at F11, I’m going to guess your were shooting in program mode with the flash enabled. Unfortunately your camera (D5000) does not do High speed sync (HSS), so it has no choice but to choose a high aperture to keep the shutter speed down to it’s limit, as it pertains to flash. If you don’t know what that means then a primer on flash it needed. Check out this link http://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/. One of the best resources on flash photography I have ever seen, including a section on how to properly utilize fill flash.

Any lighting course should be hugely beneficial, even a studio one,  because(I hope) one of the main aspects they teach you is placement of lights and the different modifiers available to do great portraiture . You’ll learn lighting patterns, ratios, etc –  all sorts of good things that can be  applied to outdoor photography as well.

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Actually, I never used the word “professional”, I was commenting purely from a photo-graphical perspective.  My meaning was that for somebody that has as much apparent experience as he does, I would expect a certain amount of fundamentals regarding photographing people. But experience definitely does not equal good, so really I shouldn’t be surprised.

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@WCS – His website states that he has over 30yrs of experience – all I can say is wow! I somewhat understand the faux’s that get the shiny new DSLR, their friends tell them how great they are and they think they can become pros – it just ignorance and not really appreciating the craft due to lack of experience and knowledge.  But guys like this I will never understand. I mean he didn’t even accidentally take a good photo. Thirty years?? A bunch of on camera flash, bad poses, terrible light, lousy framing,  no regard for backgrounds –  the list goes on.

For someone (apparently) so experienced there is little thought whatsoever to the pictures being taken. Have to shake my head on this one.

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I don’t think you shouldn’t necessarily ever teach photography, or that you don’t have an understanding of many of the principles, but it’s your understanding of exposure (specifically the camera’s meter) that makes me say you shouldn’t teach manual mode shooting. Why did I come to that conclusion? Because of your method. Take the shot, chimp for exposure and then start shooting. That’s not a good method for a professional. As you can tell, I’m somewhat of a freak when it comes to proper exposure, mainly because I detest photoshop. If I’m shooting anything of importance, I want my exposures dead on.

In a different thread,  I asked you some specific questions. One was if you could get a good exposure using only the meter (no chimping), the other was how you would use the histogram to obtain a proper exposure. I’ll even throw you a bone and give you a gray card.  How come you didn’t answer? Do you know the difference between a reflective meter and an incident meter? How many meters does a camera have?

Your words and I quote “Now ask yourself: Would you hire someone who produces images like the two on the left? Or someone who has a deep understanding of their equipment and their art?”  So with that deep understanding,  I would like you to explain to me how a camera meter works, it’s “method” so to speak at determining exposure.

 

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Did you guys agree on a price before hand? If he did, then he’s being a dick. If not, then I’m afraid to say it’s your own fault. Let me just say there’s a couple of shots that I like, and the rest are just meh – but having said that, I have seen a lot worse for a lot more money.

Then I clicked on your Flickr account and found some of your flash pics. Compared to the natural light shots, it’s like Jackal and Hyde. Dude. Seriously. There’s some great shots there. This one caught my eye.   http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8185/8107335902_b119888f52_b.jpg.  Nicely exposed, great skin tones, and you balanced the background very well. It’s simple, clean, beautiful soft light that has direction to it. Bravo. I also like this one. http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8075/8323596395_5d83e167fa_b.jpg. You underexposed the sky to really bring out the blue, and again nice exposure on the faces. There’s no doubt you have potential, you just have to clean up your natural light shots and you’d be on your way.

 

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@browneyedgirl89. I for one, would like to see what you’d  call a clean edit.

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Well, it’s hard to link to the images to show specifically – Certain poses like when people look into each others eyes while touching noses – to me that’s cliched and frankly weird looking. Never understood why people liked that one. There was another with a couple making a “heart symbol” with their arms (no cliches there!), with a badly titled horizon line is another example. As far as positives go, there was some off camera flash use, which IMNSHO is one of the best ways to differentiate oneself from the competition. Out of all the fauxtogs posted on this site, not one used a flash properly or creatively. Even one flash can create amazing photographs, why wouldn’t one learn how to use it?

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@Halley. Ah, I see. Although to be honest  I have issues with some of the pictures,  it is a step up in quality. I do agree that some people should not teach courses. In the end they do more harm than good – they’re  teaching how they use their cameras, not necessarily the correct way.

It still blows me away that so few people understand how their camera’s meter determines “correct” exposure. In fact I would argue that for most, meters are irrelevant – we use our LCD’s now and chimp. Not very accurate IMO. The digital age has really transformed photography, and not in a good way. All the basics, such as proper exposure, careful framing, the ability to see great light – that hasn’t changed since photography started. Now, with instant feedback from our LCD’s and the ability to so call  “fix” the image in post has really bred laziness and a poor way of thinking. I hear the “it’s art” excuse to which I retort “shitty light is shitty light” and no amount of “creative” post is going to disguise that. No amount of PP is going to make a a bad pose look good. It’s starts with a solid foundation in good photographic principles and an innate understanding of your camera, and once you have that, the creative side can really shine.

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@hally – Are those all your websites?

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You have a an excellent attitude in that you seem to have a willingness to learn. In fact the first question you asked “What can I do to learn lighting?” was a good one. THE most important one, photographically speaking. And it all starts with getting proper exposure. Looking at your pictures, exposure is all over the place. There’s no consistency.  So my advice is to start there – learning how to get proper exposures, and understanding how the camera’s built in reflective meter works. I found this site which gives a good explanation. http://www.sekonic.com/Whatisyourspecialty/Photographer/Articles/Incident-and-Reflected-Light.aspx. If your serious about doing studio type shots, you will need a incident meter – no if’s ands or buts. You could get by with a gray card and the cameras meter, but if you start doing multiple light setups with different ratios, an incident meter is the only sure fire way to do that. Professionals in a studio don’t take a bunch of shots and chimp their way till “it looks about right”

One of the best resources I’ve ever come across is this website:  http://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/   This specific link is how to use your flash in the most effective way, but it’s the concepts of lighting that are the real gold. There’s a small section on exposure as well, and he has three books (some which are downloadable) , which I cannot recommend highly enough. I know you said you sold your SB900(omigod nooooooo!), but there is a lot of info that is worth learning regardless.

So my advice to you FWIW:

Base your style on how you light, not a photoshop action. Think of photoshop/lightroom as a tool to enhance what you have taken, not change or fix what you have done. Get it right in camera.  Learn what the lighting patterns are, understand ratios, direction of light, color, size in relation to you subject etc. Once you have some of these concepts down, then practice, but practice with purpose. Don’t just start plunking lights down and firing away – have a purpose. Example – You’ve learned the concept of short lighting, which is the main light illuminating the side of the face furthest away from the camera IOW, the “short side” of the face. Now with this knowledge in hand, you are putting the light and/or posing your subject in a certain way – there’s purpose to it. Now you can start to experiment – move the light farther/closer away, have your subject turn more or less to the light(whether your outside or in a studio), use a reflector/diffusion panel to soften the shadows etc. Your trying different things but you have a concept and  understanding – that’s what practice is.

Learn flash. IMHO, the best way to differentiate yourself from the millions of photogs in this world is to use flash effectively and creatively. I know I know, you said you sold your flash (DOH!), but sooner or later you might want to pick one up. Think about it. You have a small, portable box of light that you can control it’s output, direction, size(make the light bigger with and umbrella or bouncing, smaller with a snoot as an example), color using gels – the list goes on and on. You’d be amazed what one flash combined with know how can accomplish.

Your website needs a major overhaul. Don’t get personal about the website, it’s strictly there as a way to showcase your photography. You say it’s a reflection of your style, but in reality it’s messy, hard to navigate and screams amateur. It should be clean and easy to navigate. Remember, we’re there to see your pictures, not the website,  so let them speak for you as to your style.

There’s probably a bunch of other things I could suggest, but I can’t remember them right now (ha ha). Good luck to you.

 

 

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@stef – Yes the red channel is one that I watch closely when it comes to skin  – if you blow it out the skin can look bad.

[jim-e]

But what part of the histogram would you be looking at that would tell you the correct exposure? I’ll give you and example. Same light, same spot, but with two different subjects. One subject has very pale skin wearing a white dress, I get the correct exposure using an incident meter and take the shot with her dominating the frame.  I then shoot a dark skinned guy with a very dark suit and take the shot. I’ve already metered using the incident meter – remember the light hasn’t changed.  If you looked at the histograms, they would be wildly different – the white dress would be pushing the right side of the histogram(overexposure according to the camera meter), the dark suit would be very close to the left side(underexposure according the camera meter) – completely different, yet they are both properly exposed. All the histogram has told you is the range of tones in the photo, not whether those particular tones are accurate. Again, think if you couldn’t check your LCD and all you had was the camera’s meter, how would you determine your exposures?

Again, I’m probably sounding like a jerk but the OP made a good point – all the modes can have their uses, and telling people to use nothing but manual mode can be a false sense of control. It’s just as easy to use EV comp as it is to flip to manual and under/over expose according to the meter. And you can also use AE_L to “lock” in the exposure in any of the more advanced auto modes (aperture, shutter, and program).

In the end, use whatever works – I’m no different in that I “chimp” exposures but that’s because I’ve been shooting for a while and have a pretty good feel. Exposure is also part of the creative process. But for a beginner I think it’s important for them to know why and when to use manual. And that begins by understanding why the meter reads a certain way, why it fails, predict when it will fail and be able to fix it.

Stepping down from soapbox…..

 

 

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@browneyedgirl89. I’m not sure what you mean by being taught to expose with metering, but my point was whether you review the photo, then adjust exposure to taste – or do you just use the built in meter, adjust, then shoot. Say you didn’t have an LCD to review the shot/histogram – would you be able to get close to the same picture using the built in meter alone?

I know this sounds a bit pedantic (it probably is), but in reality the LCD can fool you, especially in bright light. And histograms are only IMHO useful in “double checking” your particular subject that you’ve metered, and only if that subject completely dominates the frame eg. zooming in on grass (“0” ev), or a white dress (+1.7 ev) or a grey card(generally “0”).  Check the spike in the histogram, if it correlates to your metered value, then you should be good to go.

Don’t get me wrong, I use the LCD all the time, especially for the “creative” exposures – but it is good to fully understand what the meter is telling you. I know if I was a working pro, especially with heavy flash use, I would have an indecent meter for sure. No guessing, and very consistent. The expo disc is supposed to be very good as well, but of course is no good for flash exposures.

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