Shooting Portrait Outdoors - The Bride!

It doesn't really matter if we're shooting the bride's first or second (or third) marriage, she has to look her best and I mean magazine best!
Most often time is not enough for the shoot and I have to act fast and act right to make sure that I have the proper settings not to mess up capturing the event.

So, here's what happened behind the scenes:

• A week before the wedding I went looking for a unique place close to the restaurant. It all had be in one day so I knew that my time for taking more artsy photos was very limited.
• I prepared myself with flashes and all that but used none because the light was fantastic. I helped myself with 1 light reflector though.
• I mounted a prime lens for the shoot so I could get a nicely blurred background and emphasize as much as I could on the bride.
• I made sure I had enough light on the face of the bride. It's always good to set it all up first and have less to fix later.
• I had a fellow photographer helping me out throughout the shoot (this is really important and can save your life!). That's the guy holding the reflector for the photo above!
• I cracked a joke to break the ice and have the bride smiling and thinking it's all a breeze.

As you may have noticed from my previous articles I like simple setups and basic stuff when shooting. I also manage to achieve a very good performance while shooting only on manual settings. This way I can be sure that I will take the photo the way I want it and not the way my camera is guessing. This way I get consistency from image to image, camera to camera, and one shoot to the other.

Anyway, let's move on, shall we?

Different setups can be applied using multiple flashes and reflectors but remember that it's the final result that counts and it doesn't really matter how professional you looked using all your equipment for the shoot if in the end the images look bad.

The good preparation is not in purchasing the best equipment. It's about the right equipment for the case, the timing and the location (with a little bit of improvization)

We need to have the bride looking feminine and beatiful in all our pictures. We need to always have her in focus (always) and either follow the rule of the thirds or keep her in the middle. This is where she'll like to have herself.

Watch out for overexposing the dress! This is really important because the bride will want to look at how wonderful she looked on that day with her dress on. So, try and expose the dress right.

Check your shots for shut eyes. If you don't you'll be deleting images without any chances of recapturing or giving them to the bride.

Make sure the bride is relaxed and she's showing only happiness and smiles in every picture that you take.

If this is your first shoot of this kind then look at and learn all the classic poses and do not experiment unless you have lots of classic shots already stored safely on your memory card.

Check out how to build a nice wedding collage here.

How about the other wedding photography?

Or you can practice some casual winter holidays portraiture.

This is probably my last article for 2012. Enjoy the holidays and don't let your cameras rest too long!

All the best,

Kamen Kunchev

The Portrait Lenses

I recently argued with a person on the internet about portrait lenses and I think it's very important to actually know what makes a certain lens good for portrait. First of all, we need to know our location and the space that we require for the shoot and right after that we need to choose the proper lens.
Let's answer one simple question:

Why are some lenses good for portrait and some are just not doing the trick?

The answer is simpler than we think. The secret is not in the aperture, it's not in the size, the weight, the brand or the stabilization... It's all in the aberration, and I mean the distortion of objects (face, body etc.) The less distortion we have in the image the better our models look. This is highly dependent on the focal length and, to some extent, on the sensor's crop factor (click here for more on full frame vs. APS-C sensors). Longer lenses produce images with a lot less distortion. Ideally outdoors I'd shoot with an 85mm or longer lens (if you have a vario lens make sure to keep it zoomed at over 50mm) to steer clear from any distorted faces. My big love however is the 50mm prime lens that gets me the results I need. It's small and it's perfect for outdoor portraiture.
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However, if I want to shoot in a studio a vario lens is required. Some people who rarely do studio shoots will go ahead and start proposing prime lenses for studio portraiture but people who know the trade will tell you prime lenses are pretty much useless between four walls. The reason you need a good vario (basically anything between 18 and over 100mm would be nice) is that studio shoots take a certain amount of time that can't be expanded too much (studio hours, models, make-up artists, stylists and what not) and we want to get the job done so shooting with a prime lens means moving lights back and forth as well as setting their strength over and over again. And all this because if we want to zoom in on the model with a prime lens we have to take a step forward and drag the lights (all front lights that would hit our back for standing in front of them) with us instead of zooming in with a vario lens and taking the framing we want.
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By using vario for portrait shoots in closed spaces we solve many problems and make the shoot possible. Just make sure you're not too close to the model at a smaller focal length to avoid distorted images. Zoom in and out using the vario and don't zoom out all the way because it will be a disaster.
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A good vario lens will get you where you need to be at the studio but nothing beats the bokeh of a prime lens when shooting outdoors. This is one of the main reasons people get a nice 50mm prime lens (apart from its low price of course). You have lots of space behind the model and lots of space to move around and take angles and go around outdoors so this is the best option for the case. Indoors, however, you need a sharp vario with as little aberrations as possible to cover different framing from one line of shooting without moving the lights too much. You will be using aperture values between f5.6 and f13 on a single-color background so forget about the bokeh of the 50mm.

Write your questions below and I'll be more than happy respond. For more on lenses click here.

All the best,

Kamen Kunchev

Autumn Leaves

It's a beautiful autumn outside and it's hard not to wear your camera around your neck. Wonderful colors draw my attention from everywhere and the soft afternoon light makes this season the perfect time for outdoor photography (more on outdoor portraiture click here). Usually I go outside shooting female portraits but I also like mounting my 50mm prime for shooting dry leaves and all the beauty around without models and special setups.

Here's my advice on taking wonderful leaf photos in the autumn:

• Mount a wide aperture lens for the sake of shooting with a shallow depth of field and a higher shutter speed (it gets windy and you could be experiencing poorer light conditions)
• Make sure you have the proper white balance set on your camera. This will make the colors look realistic and the tones will be friendlier to the eye. The rest you can do in any image-editing software.
• Figure out a way to create contrast and what's in focus will pop out. I use 2 ways to do that. The first one, I try to have some sky in the photo which gives me a real color contrast between the blue sky and the warm colors of the leaves. The second, I look for a depth in the background that really makes the object pop and nail the attention.
• When you shoot try and follow the rule of the thirds. This will give more air in the photo and more emphasis on the object.
• Light is generally softer so don't restrain yourselves to shooting only in the late afternoon when you'll have a very small window of opportunity for taking many shots.
• If you do not like how things are in front of the camera go ahead and rearrange the leaves or whatever to make it look the way you think is cooler.
• Watch your exposure. The light coming through the branches and leaves could be deceiving so check your settings and results before and after every shot.

Got questions? Use the form below to post comments and I'll be more than happy to respond or extend the article.

For more info on shooting flowers and taking wonderful nature shots click here.

Now go and get those lenses dug deep in the autumn leaves. Who knows, a photo like this could be a contest winner.

All the best,

Kamen Kunchev

Best Natural Backgrounds

Of course, this article is about outdoor portraiture and what we need to know about making the photo equally good not only in terms of proper camera settings but also when it comes to choosing the best natural background. Making a good choice in this aspect will make our model stand out better and turn our photo more interesting delivering the right emphasis on what we want to show.
Let me make one thing clear before we start with my selection of backgrounds. By 'natural' I mean 'available outdoors'. We are not talking about the backdrops that we buy for the studio. If you want to read more about studio backdrops please click here.
My obvious number one outdoor background is the natural bokeh created by light that's hitting leaves. This is truly amazing and gives me the one-of-a-kind randomness of the environment that I can play around with in Photoshop to produce a really enticing image. All you need is a wide aperture lens (I shoot with a classical 50mm prime) and stay within the range of F2.8 to F4 for maximum sharpness. When I shoot such portraits I keep a fair distance between the model and the background to create a nice bokeh and give my photos the third dimension that most studio shots really lack. You need to know what you're doing here and use a diffused flash, a light reflector or both to make sure that light gets properly distributed on the areas of emphasis.

My second favourite background is the repeating pattern. Such shapes one can not find in nature because nature doesn't work this way but still we can be creative outdoors and find an old fence that we can shoot against. These patterns will make your model's face and body really pop out and you will get the needed emphasis exactly where it should be. The eye will go straight for the model's figure and face. Keep in mind that such photos can be made without a really wide aperture. We can simply use a lens without too much aberrations. Otherwise the straight lines of the background we chose will look curved at the edges of the photo. Another thing that is essential, do not leave harsh or any shadows on the background. If you do your portrait will look like taken with a small compact camera. Get a colorful pattern (a brick wall, a painted or old fence) and you'll find out that the results will turn out to be more than eye-catching.

Autumn leaves present a great opportunity to shoot different angles and experiment a lot. I like going for a late afternoon shoot with one reflector and work until dusk. Such photos give a nice and warm feeling because of the background color and are really easy on the eye.

I wouldn't want to make this list any longer even though I have plenty more favourite backgrounds. I will leave it at 3. Maybe you could post your 3 suggestions and we can discuss them.

Final words, use your background to build up on the idea of a third dimension, mood, season, place etc. Don't just go ahead and shoot like you would at the studio. Outdoor portraiture could be very demanding and usually requires good timing, careful selection of place and even choosing the right model. More on outdoor portrait photography click here.

Have a great day,

Kamen Kunchev