I’ve been wanting to get outside for a week or so and try some nice low-light shots, long exposure in the order of minutes. Then it snowed….. Then it snowed some more…. then it froze over and iced…. then it snowed some more… now it’s raining, you gotta love that UK weather! I don’t need it to be perfect weather, but snow and rain are sure to diminish image quality. Keeping my fingers crossed for some non-bad weather for a few days and I’ll see if I can’t get a few of these pictures out of my head and into the camera.
Wow, the first post of 2009 comes in February, which makes me feel a bit sad that I’ve gone a whole month without yapping on here. I’ve recently decided to start looking at some lighting solutions because let’s face it, without light the photographer is lost. But those who are familiar with my work will know that I prefer to work with available light and fast lenses, whether it be portraiture or music photography, day light and available light have been where my love has been. There’s nothing quite as spectacular as a portrait taken when the daylight is diffused in just the right way, at the correct angle to make (or exceed) the image you have in your mind.
But two of my favourite photographers also use additional light to create a mood and an effect that blows me away frequently, one I have mentioned in this blog several time, Damien Lovegrove, who has gone from strength to strength in his commercial career and now authors DVD’s, speaks at professional conferences, writes for magazines, the list is endless. The other sadly died in 2002, Yousuf Karsh is generally heralded by some of the top portrait photographers as a leader in the field, his work had so much depth and often created an image that epitomises the subject’s inner personality (Yousuf was quoted many times that this was because his interest always was in the personality rather than the image itself!). The one thing that both of these great photographers have in common is a background in stage lighting, Damien at BBC Television, and Yousuf experienced and experimented in a theatre environment.
Now Damien is proof that he loves to experiment with lighting, Yousuf was amazed at the possibilities using incandescent lighting, so I’m now looking at my options to take the plunge in to the mystical realms of lighting. I’ve started doing research and have decided that although more expensive, the freedom offered by a mobile solution like Elinchrom’s Ranger line or Broncolor Mobilite seem to be the way to go to give freedom.
Once I’ve made a choice and started experimenting, I’ll be posting some images for critique, but in the meantime, if anyone has any good resources for lighting knowledge and information, I’ll gladly accept it, since entering the world of photographic lighting feels like the first time I picked up a camera and wondered what difference changing the F-stop made? It’s quite overwhelming.
One last thing, if you’re not familiar with Yousuf Karsh’ work you can find him right here: http://karsh.org
Cheers…..
