Peter West Carey Photography

Tag: lighting

  • Travel Portraits – Photography Basics

    Travel Portraits – Photography Basics

    Travel Portraits

    Part of the joy of travel is meeting new people. Sometimes they are like you and sometimes they are different. Okay, maybe more times they are different and that usually sparks our desire to photograph them. Before you grab your camera and start snapping, I have some tips and considerations for you.

    Observe before shooting

    You’re not on a vacation or trip to go sniping photos of people all day long, are you?  I hope not.

    Instead, take time to sit and watch the world go by for a while before taking your travel portraits. The meanest looks I’ve received from subjects are when I come into someone’s space, snap my picture and leave. I’ve learned from those early mistakes.

    You will get better results, and more ‘real’ results, when you take just 2 or 5 minutes to sit and observe. You can observe many people at once in a place like a market and they will become more comfortable the longer you stay.

    Heck, you might even want to buy something they are selling. Even if there is a language barrier, commerce creates its own relationship. It’s less of a “taking a photo” situation then and more of an exchange.

    Get to know your subject

    If language is not much of a barrier, get to know your subject.

    Ask all the things tourists ask to start the conversation: What’s your name? Do you live here? Do you like it here? Where’s a good place to eat?

    Just start a conversation and don’t worry about the photo. Not only will the conversation break the ice, the photo will have more meaning to you when viewed 10 years from now: “Oh yeah, that was the guy who builds model trains and had over 200 of them!”

    Conversations bring more meaning to travel. Photographs help you remember.

    Straight portrait or environmental

    Sometimes a subject’s facial features point you toward shooting a straight portrait. We have all seen people with distinct faces. Chiseled features, lines describing decades of joy or struggle, a beauty that radiates from their eyes.

    For those subjects, a straight portrait is all that is needed. Bring the eyes to the top line for the Rule of Thirds, make sure you have good lighting (see below) and snap away. Keep talking to help the person feel at ease. It’s okay if they talk while you shoot; you are shooting digital and can delete the bad ones. Most people don’t like to pose and having a conversation helps them relax.

    If the person is doing something, especially a trade of some kind that partially or fully defines who they are, bring that into the image. Environmental portraits are those that show the person within their environment.

    You don’t have to make it a full body shot, but bring in the background or foreground as it relates to your subject. Some posing here might be needed, if the subject is okay with it, otherwise let them continue and have them look up once in a while. Here again, lighting is critical.

    Lens selection

    Most portraits are shot in the range of 50-120mm on a full frame sensor camera. This means about 35mm-90mm on a cropped sensor (depending on the crop).

    80-110mm is the ‘classic’ range with 80mm prime lenses being a favorite of many photographers. I’ll go over settings below, just know that this range helps you separate the subject from the background.

    When shooting environmental portraits, something a little wider might be needed. In this case, 20mm-50mm on a full-frame camera is better. It helps bring in the background or foreground so you can see what the subject is working on. It’s okay, with environmental portraits, to have a wider depth of field.

    Some basic settings

    For a classic portrait you will want to focus on the eyes. Stand about 10’/3m away from your subject and have them about 3’/1m away from anything behind them. ISO should be as low as you can go without having too slow of a shutter speed.

    Aperture set to f/4 or f/6.3. Some people will go up to f/8 as well. Those are all good as long as you still get the separation you want from the background while getting their whole face in focus. Shutter speed should follow the other settings and if it’s around 1/200, that’s a good place. You just don’t want it too slow to cause blur by you or your subject.

    Environmental portraits can have a wider range of settings. Top your ISO around 800 to give enough shutter speed as the subject might be moving. f/8 or f/11 should give enough depth of field while making sure you still focus on their face (not so much the eyes, as you’ll be further back).

    Lighting

    Lighting, as I stated at the beginning of this series, is the most important aspect of great photography. How best to use it for portraits?

    Natural Light

    This is my lighting of choice for travel because it is the easiest to pack. 🙂

    It can be the most challenging as well. You don’t want your subject looking directly at the sun so their whole face is filled with light as this will make their features garish and make them squint.

    A defused light can help as well as a gradient of that light. For this, getting close to a window or around the corner from the harsh sunlight is preferred.

    You also want to make sure the subject’s eyes aren’t shaded from a hat. It might be comfortable for them, but loses the main subject of the portrait (their eyes). Bringing them out of the sunlight, or lit from behind, will give a more even photo.

    Fill flash

    A lot of cameras have a flash and with it a fill-flash setting. This is perfect for adding just enough light to get under hats as well as add a catch light to your subject’s eyes when it might be missing. Learn how to use it. Here’s a great article on Digital Photography School to help you learn some basics.

    Bounced light

    Bounced light is often ignored but can be a boon for portraits. Simply set your subject against or near a reflective surface.

    This can be as simple as a white wall. Note though that the color of the bounce will be cast on your subject. This can be beneficial with warm colors, like oranges, but a green cast might make your subject look sickly.

    It’s also a way to fill your subject’s face with light without direct sunlight and the squint. Stand with your back to a bright surface/wall and let the reflected, dimmed light help your portrait shine.

    Lit from behind

    Back-lighting can bring a heavenly glow to your subject, in the right conditions. Late/early day sun is perfect for this as it is low on the horizon and warmer/more golden.

    It helps if you have fill light if the backlight is so harsh it blows out all the details behind the subject. Or a reflector of some type to bring light back onto the face of your subject.

    To Pay Or Not To Pay

    While traveling it is not uncommon to be asked to pay to take someone’s portrait. This can be a sticky subject and has been debated elsewhere online for eons, it seems.

    My personal take is to avoid paying (and not take photos) in high tourist areas. While some people make their living from being photographed by tourists (think; Time Square in New York), it feels too contrived. I don’t go on vacations or trips to essentially have a photoshoot I would setup back home.

    Although, I am not above buying what my subject is selling, if they have something to offer. It’s a complicated subject, have I mentioned that?

    Go with what makes you comfortable. Do some research. Don’t be pushed into paying. Be okay with walking away. That’s my main advice.

    Or better yet, bring a portable printer and offer to “give a photo” instead of taking one.

    That being said, if you’re shooting because you might want to sell the photo later, you should pay the subject and get their signature on a model release.

    Share And Be Thankful

    Be gracious. And be appreciative. Be thankful that someone shared their time with you and now you have your own memory on your camera.

    And share your photographs with your subject, via the screen on your camera, when you are finished.

    Examples

    Photography Basics – A 43 Day Adventure, and its companion 40 Photography Experiments, are series written by professional photographer Peter West Carey. The series are designed to unravel the mysteries of photography, helping you can take better pictures. Subscribe here to receive all the updates and bonus material. Your comments are always welcome.

    Photo ToursIf you enjoy the series, consider learning photography first-hand on a professionally led international photo tour in Nepal or Bhutan. More information can be found at Far Horizon Photo Tours. 

  • Look At The Light – Photography Experiments

    Look At The Light – Photography Experiments

    Today’s topic in 40 Photography Experiments has less to do with using a camera and more to do with photography.

    Set your camera down for a moment, please. You won’t need it today.

    Here’s the experiment you can run:

    1) Look some place other than this computer/phone screen (but memorize these easy steps first).

    2) Imagine all the power goes out and the sun suddenly goes dark. Ignore the fact that the Earth would turn into an ice ball or that worldwide panic has begun.

    3) Everything is pitch black. Not even star light can make it through our atmosphere.

    Done!

    Can you take a picture of the stuff you saw right before the lights went out?

    Here’s the thing: You take pictures of light, not stuff. You may have heard me mention this before.

    Let’s me type that again in a bigger font, because it is the root of all photography.

    You take pictures of light, not stuff.

    Sure, the light bounces off stuff and then you take a picture of that reflected light, but you don’t take pictures of stuff, just light.

    It’s a hard concept for some to dial in, myself included. We’ll play around with this more in another experiment later in the series, but for now, take a look at these two images with me:

    These are red chilli peppers drying in the afternoon sun in Bhutan (where I lead photo tours, hint 😉 ). The shots were taken 9 seconds apart, which was long enough for me to take the first photo, walk 10′ and then take the second.

    These peppers are in exactly the same light, but look totally different. In the first one I am looking mostly toward the sun and in the second the sun is behind me. I’m not taking pictures of just chilli peppers, I’m taking pictures of light interacting with the chilli peppers.

    Still don’t believe me?

    Different guy in each shot, but the same light at different angles.

    You’re don’t take pictures of stuff; you take pictures of light.

    Here’s another experiment you can run:

    1) For the rest of today, walk around without your camera.

    2) Look at the difference in light from scene to scene as your day unfolds. Where is it coming from? Is it warm or harsh? Are there shadows? How does it make a subject shine or become obscured? What would happen if your subject moved into new light?

    Never Done!

    This experiment will continue until the day you die. Light is everywhere and as a photographer (you don’t have to be professional to be a photographer) you can’t help but notice changes. With practice, you will be seeing the subtle differences in light even when you’re camera is not with you.

    Questions?  Pop ’em like Pez in the comments section below. or email me at peter@peterwestcarey.com.

    Photography Basics – A 43 Day Adventure, and its companion 40 Photography Experiments, are series written by professional photographer Peter West Carey. The series are designed to unravel the mysteries of photography, helping you can take better pictures. Subscribe here to receive all the updates and bonus material. Your comments are always welcome.

    Photo ToursIf you enjoy the series, consider learning photography first-hand on a professionally led international photo tour in Nepal or Bhutan. More information can be found at Far Horizon Photo Tours. 

  • The Number One Law Of All Photography – Photography Basics

    The Number One Law Of All Photography – Photography Basics

    Welcome to Day 1!

    Let’s jump right in with the fundamental law for all photography; You take pictures of light, not things.

    That’s it! Why is it law and not a rule? For one thing, we’ll see tomorrow that all the rules of photography can be broken in one way or another for creative reasons. But laws? Laws have dire consequences if they are broken.

    By way of example, let’s see if you can spot the difference in the next two photos for Bhutan.

    This is Dochula Pass with 108 Buddhist chortens overlooking the Himalayan mountains. Glorious light from our sun is radiating down on Earth and bouncing off of all the things and scattering in every direction. One of those directions happens to be right down the barrel of your camera.

    Now, let’s suppose that glorious sun went out. Poof! Besides all the other horrible consequences involved, there is now no light (let’s also suppose all earthbound light sources are wiped out at the same time). Now what does the scene look like?

    The stuff is still there, but the light is all gone.

    Your camera has a fundamental need for photons. Fundamental to the light we see, photons bounce off of things and entering your camera’s lens, be it a DLSR, smartphone, drone, etc…  This is what interacts with your camera’s sensor to produce an image (more info on photons here). While technically not all light contains photos, almost everything you’ll ever photograph will require them.

    That’s the long and the short of it.

    Without light, you can’t take photos. And even with light, the subject can look different in different types of light.

    A little later on I will be giving you some challenges to try out on your own as a way of reinforcing the ideas. And because practice is essential to improving in photography. For now, let me show you a simple example.

    These are the same peppers in the same bin. The only difference is the angle of the light.

    In the first image, the light is coming from in front of (and above) the peppers. In the second image, the light is coming from behind (and above) the camera.

    Just a matter of taking two steps forward to shoot a different angle, but the result is dramatic. From ugly, almost colorless peppers to wonderfully red-orange delights.

    I think it’s important enough of a law of photography to repeat it one more time, but with larger letters.

    You take pictures of light, not things.

    That’s the lesson for today. Nice and easy, but fundamental to understanding all of what is coming over the next 43 days of this adventure into photography.

    Tomorrow we will cover 9 Rules You Should Learn To Break.

    Questions?  Pop ’em like Pez in the comments section below. or email me at peter@peterwestcarey.com.

    Photography Basics – A 43 Day Adventure, and its companion 40 Photography Experiments, are series written by professional photographer Peter West Carey. The series are designed to unravel the mysteries of photography, helping you can take better pictures. Subscribe here to receive all the updates and bonus material. Your comments are always welcome.

    Photo ToursIf you enjoy the series, consider learning photography first-hand on a professionally led international photo tour in Nepal or Bhutan. More information can be found at Far Horizon Photo Tours.