Hawaiian Monk Seal visits my photo shoot!

Hawaii never ceases to amaze me! We showed up at Little Makapuu Beach for a photo shoot and were walking around looking for our first location when we were treated to a visit from a Hawaiian Monk Seal! I implored Jade to run back to the car and get the camera before the seal took off. He hung around long enough to pose for some photos and play in the surf and was gone. It was a truly magical 5 minutes!

Entering the world of HD Video!

I just ordered a Canon EOS 5D Mark II and will be shooting a lot more behind the scenes video of my photo sessions. I'll also be adding a video component to my Executive Portrait services! Stay tuned.

No sunlight on location? Create it!

It's been about 30 years since I was was invited to my first "big production" shoot for a TV commercial. My good friend and first "serious model" had landed her first commercial. I was extremely excited when Pam asked me to come along. I remember that the director was a very friendly gentleman who welcomed me with enthusiasm. I think the product was a frozen ice pop called "Ice Juicy" or something like that. The shoot took place on a Long Island NY beach. It wasn't exactly a stunning Long Island Beach day. In fact, I remember it being quite overcast. I was a young student of lighting and was VERY concerned. I couldn't understand why the director and crew didn't seem to be upset. I finally got the nerve to ask the director about it: "...but, there's no sun today," I exclaimed! He calmly replied "Oh that doesn't matter...we'll create it."

It is now 30 years later and I live on a different island on the opposite side of the United States and this director's words ring through my head on almost all of my location shoots. I cannot rely on -- or wait for that magic time just after sunrise or before sunset. "Sunset" is a term that has very different meanings depending where on Oahu we are shooting. The Koolau Mountain range along the East-Northeast blocks the sun much earlier than you'd expect because the sun is setting in the West--well behind the majestic mountains. There may be plenty of light peaking over the mountains and illuminating the background, but our model is always in shade.

My job is to "create" the sense of a sunlit beach--just like I watched 30 years ago. Fortunately I do not need one of the monster "hot lights"- -blinding spotlights that were on at all times. I bring on of my Dynalite Uni400 monoheads and a couple of light modifiers.

We used an 18" white beauty dish to create these images of Joanne Guillermo. (You've seen Joanne a few times now. She's become one of my favorite models and always does a great job.) The beauty dish, fitted with a white diffuser, does a great job of simulating sunlilght. We set the strobe/ambient combination according to the background and we are good to go!

Outdoor lighting--sometimes a hat can throw you off!

Shooting outdoors and controlling your lighting all day is a topic that I cover in detail in my book Portrait Lighting for Digital Photographers: The Basics and Beyond. I talk about the need to modify midday sun by using some kind of shade. The shade will certainly soften the shadows created by the harsh light, but it creates a situation where the light falling on your model is less than what is illuminating the background. I show what happens when you expose for your model's skin tones and then what happens when you expose for the background. The key to balancing the two exposures is to use a strobe to bring the light values of what is illuminating his or her skin up to what is lighting the background. I know that trees, overhangs and thin fabric create the solution--and problems described, but what about a simple hat or cap? Would the brim of the cap be enough to cast enough of a shadow to underexpose your model's face too much? We set out to find out.


Rayna is a former University of Hawaii Wahine Volleyball player. I met her in the stands one day after her playing days had ended. We managed to keep in touch and finally got together for a shoot. We shot four themes at Sand Island on Oahu: a dress with Honolulu as a backdrop; a "grungier" theme by an old junkyard; a sarong by the beach and some swimsuits. Rayna's junkyard outfit included a baseball cap so I wondered about what it would do to the exposures.

I first shot some images by taking a meter reading of the light surrounding Rayna. The background is indeed beautifully exposed and the light on her face is soft and pretty, but we do see the tell tale signs of an underexposed model: the light under her hat is less than the background because of the shade cast by the brim of the hat.












We placed the light meter under the brim of Rayna's hat to get the exposure reading for this photograph. The light on her skin is still soft and beautiful--and the exposure for her skin is more accurate, but we have lost the background. Exposing for the shade overexposed the background.













The key to this image was, just as in the examples in the book, to add light by using a strobe. We knew the exposure of the background from the first shots in this series so we adjusted the strobe to give us a combined ambient/strobe exposure that balanced Rayna's skin tones with the background.













The shoot with Rayna was a blast! We tried unsuccessfully to find time to work together for about 7 months. It was worth the wait! She is such a nice person! She photographs beautifully and is a pleasure to work with. Here are more images from the shoot:













































COMING IN NOVEMBER 2009!

Christine--Then and Now

I met Christine Pham about 6 years ago when she was working as a hostess for a local Honolulu restaurant. She agreed to sit for some photos that wound up in a few of my books all those years ago. She moved back to the Mainland and we lost touch...until we found each other again on Myspace about two years ago. We traded the occasional e-mail and casually kept in touch. I received a note from her about a month ago where she said that she would be in Honolulu for a week. I immediate asked her to update her photos and she agreed.


Christine "then"

















Christine now

















It was great fun to work with her again, but it was even more interesting to how much she had grown in five years. She went from a pretty teenager to a beautiful young lady. We met for dinner and to edit the photos a couple days later. It was really nice to sit and talk with her without the pressures of a photoshoot. We talked about where she'd been, where she was going and generally about life's trials and triumphs. The weekend was a lot of fun and one more reminder of the wonderful people I've met and friendships I've made in this field that I love so much.

Places to find me!

Hello everyone! Welcome to those who are now just getting this feed. Please feel free to visit older blog posts here at http://stevephotohi.blogspot.com/ I have a new Author's page in the Author Central section on Amazon.com. You can find me on Facebook and send a friend request then join the "Ask Steve Photography Related Questions." I am also on Myspace and Twitter. I write a monthly column for www.prophotoresource.com and I also have an "Ask Steve" forum on that site. You can find some of my older articles and lessons in the FREE lessons section of the school portion of my website, www.dantzigphotography.com. Signed copies of my books are available in the bookstore on my website.

Aloha,

Steve

New Book Cover

My new book has a name and a cover! Thanks Lindsay!!!! I've just made the last of the edits, so it's off to the printer for a November release!