Photo Tip: Flashing Tips

The past few weeks, I've dedicated myself to lighting. After all, it's the key to good photography. I've been studying lighting solutions and setups. I found a great tip for the manual modes on a camera. I've seen that my Canon 550EX has many manual modes, but I never really understood why it had a manual control for the zoom ratio when it can simply read this from the camera, even when it's attached via a synch cable.

This trick involves mismatching the zoom setting on your flash with the zoom setting on your lens. For this example, Shoot with a 50mm lens and crop tight on the face. Set your flash zoom rate to 105mm (or highest zoom setting for your flash). Connect it with a synch cord to get a directional light and cast a sort of "Rembrandt" lighting technique. With the flash set to 105mm, the angle of the lighting will be more focused, thinking it's going to be working with a 105mm lens. This will allow the light to focus in a smaller area in the center of the face and have some dark shadow fall-off.

It doesn't give you a full snooted effect, but it can help to control flash fall-off in the background. I have only tested this with a 50mm and setting the flash to 105mm. I'd assume if I got the flash closer, or used a wide angle lens, the effect would be more pronounced.

Acting Professional turns into being professional.

When I started getting serious about photography again about 3 years ago, I wanted to be better. Then I started to make a little money with my pics and I wanted to be more professional. Then I wanted to be published. All this time, I had felt like I was still a "hobbyist". I was reading "pro sites", "pro books" and conversing with other professional photographer and not feeling out of place.

This fall while shooting a cyclocross race, someone asked me if I was a professional photographer. This was the first time I hesitated and didn't instantly say it was a hobby, or I was a weekend shooter. I realized, from his perception, I looked like a professional photographer. I had professional equipment and I was "working" like a Pro and even hoped to get paid from the event. Why did I hesitate to answer, "Yes, I am."

For me at least, it seems like it's a big step for me to consider myself a professional. I feel more comfortable in most shooting situations and can even sit back and identify a problem with a shot and think around it during the shot. Just the way I would with a problem with a web page at work.

I've always believed that acting professional, leads to being professional, but it's really more then that. The next step is believing in your abilities as a pro.

Working With People

I was working on an article for istockphoto.com the other evening on different lighting effects for flash units. I shot an evening with a model from OneModelPlace.com. Lana was great to work with. Very easy going and photogenic. I just regret that I didn't have more time to try all the different setups I needed for the article. Perhaps I'll reschedule a shoot for this week with someone else for variety or I'll see if I can find some existing samples to demonstrate the other examples.



This is a move that I plan to move more towards. I've been strong with sports photos and candid photography, but what I really want to do is spend more time in a studio and "creating" art, not just grabbing what I see. I think that is more difficult. It certainly requires more planning. I think I need to do more reading of magazines with people NOT on bicycles. ;-)

Published in DirtRag #111

I hit one goal I had for this year, be published in a cycling magazine. After the Ironmasters race, I was contacted by Dirt Rag Magazine looking for a contribution for an article they were doing on the event. I was so pleased. The irony of the entire thing is that I was putting together a promo piece for another cycling publication at the same time as I got the email from Dirt Rag.

I plan to do some more cycling photography over the winter, specifically, there are some mountain biking shots I have in mind that I want to "get on film" this winter.

About

A project in my senior year of art school was a self portrait illustration, of an open poker hand with my face dimensional popping out of the "jack" and the caption read, "Ed Hidden, Jack of All Trades". Sure it was Cliché, but I'll chalk it up to still being a teen.

I must have been insightful to my career because, I've tried to stay true to that cheesy metaphor over the years. I've been a paste-up artist, technical illustrator, multimedia artist, animator, online video editor, art director and currently, a web designer and photographer.

So, just who is this multifaceted person?


"Educator Bio"
Ed Hidden is a graphic designer, photographer, code-monkey, blogger, cubicle dweller and motorcyclist (often referred to by his online moniker: MotoEd). Ever since art school, he's enjoyed tutoring his peers and his blog is an extension of sharing that knowledge. Ed also co-hosts, "The Light Source" podcast available at StudioLighting.net.


"Photographer Bio"
Ed Hidden is a graphic designer, photographer, code-monkey, blogger, cubicle dweller and motorcyclist (often referred to by his online moniker: MotoEd). While interested in photography for about half his life, he focused on it as a career 4 years ago. Primarily the goal is shooting stock photography, but has been known to shoot some wheeled sporting events, portraits and anything that tells a story. Here Ed's blog and commentary at EdHidden.com (blog and podcast) and at StudioLighting.net (LightSource Podcast)


"Web Designer Bio"
Ed Hidden is a graphic designer, photographer, code-monkey, blogger, cubicle dweller and motorcyclist (often referred to by his online moniker: MotoEd). He started working in web design before a reliable visual editor existed, not an easy task for a graphics guy. While he's a geek at heart, it brought him to love databases and connecting them visually through a browser. Today, he can be found screwing up the CSS on his blog and fumbling through the PHP statements.


Please feel free to reprint any of the topics or articles on EdHidden.com under the condition that you include the appropriate author bio at the conclusion of the article with a link back to Ed Hidden.com.