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Light is light…

May 6, 2020 By Robert Provencher Leave a Comment

My wife creates hand made jewellery. Two years now. We started selling her one-of-a-kind creations at local craft shows both in our city and down in Costa Rica when there this winter.

Sales were brisk to say the least. We may be onto something. Even Sheldon, the creator of the weekly Thursday night market, where we had a table for six weeks in a row, stated her stuff was going to sell.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Photography Lighting&Posing Tips, WrapUp Tagged With: photo tips, photography business, photography lighting, photography marketing, photography tips, selling photography

How can a novice photographer level up?

February 20, 2019 By Robert Provencher Leave a Comment

Someone on Quora ( one of my favorite places) asks: “How can a novice photographer level up?”

I answered:
You need to be more clear first off. What do you mean ‘level up’? I’ll go with get better at photography and answer from there.

My three points to consider:

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Photography Lighting&Posing Tips Tagged With: photographybusiness, photographylighting, photomarketing, phototips

Using the Goddox AD600BM and AD200 on location

July 24, 2018 By Robert Provencher 2 Comments

I like these lights. They feel well made and rugged. Like me.

And I don’t need to get a mortgage or sell my soul. Hopefully they’ll last too. Like me. (not my hair)

I bought the Goddox AB600BM, which is 100% manual, and softbox, to use on families, weddings and shoots like the one I’m showing you in this post.

It’s an amazing system. All radio signal controlled from the camera. Even though the 600 is not the TTL version, I prefer dialing in my output and figuring out exposure from the camera. It’s a fast, easy and versatile system.

One thing I do wish it had was the ability to switch to optical slave when needed. Why? If the radio thingie quits, I could manually fire these using an old school on camera flash or similar. I acquired a second “back up” transmitter…just in case.

The 200 I purchased back in May. Sorta my foray into this flash system.

 

 

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Back in April during the Lighting Mastermind we talked about the Goddox system, specifically the 200. For members HERE

Last week I dug deeper into using the newly acquired 600BM and showed you many examples from real paying gigs using real paying clients….families, executive…mostly families. That replay is HERE

Here’s a summary of the executive shoot. The set up…

The results:

Before shooting I had my assistant, Brent, aka the grunt, check on the reflection while firing the main.

These were shot outside, sorta in open shade. High speed synch with a very wide aperture around 2.8. Using the 85mm 1.8 Batis lens created a smooth and much desired background. Shutter speed? Who knows. It was plenty fast to let me hand hold and I simply “dialed in” the best speed for ambient light exposure. All possible with the high speed synch feature.

I love this system, plain and simple.

A few more from this shoot and a few other family shoots that I dug into during the July Lighting Mastermind presentation.
More to come…stay tuned.

Robert N. Provencher – Your Master Coach Marketer

“If you want to be a profitable and successful photographer, then study profitable and successful photographers.”

Join us…Content, Coaching & Community

 

Filed Under: Photography Lighting&Posing Tips Tagged With: photo lighting tips, photo tips, photography business, photography lighting

What are the best lighting strategies for fairy portraits?

June 6, 2018 By Robert Provencher 2 Comments

After many years of shooting fairies, and helping other photographers, here’s how I see lighting works best.
These lighting tips and fairy portraits strategies are guaranteed to give you a solid basis and groundwork in marketing fairies in your photography business.

Yours in photography,

Robert Provencher

Secrets to building, creating, selling and promoting Enchanted Fairy, Ice Fairy & Medieval Themed Sessions

 

Filed Under: Photography Lighting&Posing Tips Tagged With: fairies photos tips, fairy photography marketing, fairy portrait lighting, fairy portrait tips, how to sell photography, photography marketing

Frequency separation made easy and a free photoshop action

May 14, 2018 By Robert Provencher 2 Comments

Frequency separation is a photoshop strategy that seems all the rage. Some embrace it, others can do without.

Many, like myself, found it very complicated at first, however I wanted the “look” and end results it offered. Problem is, it seemed very complicated.

So, I deduced it to a fast, easy, simple and effective solution. Here it is.

I even created a photoshop action which I now use on almost all my sessions and reprints, from families, to executive, fairies, commercial, medieval portraits….you name it. It works!

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Photography Lighting&Posing Tips, Photography Webinar Replays, PhotographyMarketing Tagged With: frequency separation tutorial, how to sell photography, make money with photography, photography business, photoshop tutorial, portrait photography tips

Photography lighting tip: When “idiot” lighting works….

February 15, 2018 By Robert Provencher 2 Comments

Photography lighting tips from the trenches

Some of the best photography lighting is also some of the most basic lighting.

Two lights, one on either side, both with the same, or near same output. Wash the subject with light.
Kinda flat, kinda boring….

We used to call this idiot lighting. Maybe we still do, as offensive as that sounds.
The truth is, there’s a time and place for it. And I use it often enough.

The key is to know when and where. For me, I use it when I need properly exposed images and I have very little time, and the lighting and scene available is tricky. A wedding is a great example. Or, in a small location shooting families at a house.

Likewise, when I’m shooting a large family, I don’t want to fuss, just get the job done, done right, I will use this lighting.

To rely on this lighting and only this lighting is very limiting however. I suppose this is where and when “idiot” applies. Being able to create portraits using a main and good use of shadows is key to being diverse and creative.

Here’s an example I will be showing in an upcoming  Lighting Mastermind
(LIGHTING MASTERMIND REPLAYS ARE HERE FOR MEMBERS)….from a  fall in-home session:

Two lights, small softboxes each  a Nikon SB800 set to manual, same output. Also set to optical slave, a flash on camera with a weak output, bounced, to fire these flashes.
The results…..Sony A7Rii 16-35 lens set to 35mm. f4 ISO400 1/60th second on a tripod.
And some fun shots of the kids…same lighting all throughout this session:

I will also use this lighting outdoors, during a wedding, especially for the formal portraits with the family.

These shots are there to document the family, and I often have little time.

Same exact lighting as above. We’re in open shade, but there was not enough area to light everyone evenly so I set up my two softboxes.
Sony A7Rii 85MM Batis lens at f4 ISO 100. Weak fill flash on camera to fire the two softboxes.


You can see the two main lights showing up in the specular catch lights.

Knowing when to use this lighting for your photography and best results is key. When I am on location I always bring enough, more than enough gear, to make sure if I need to set up this lighting I can do it. I need to stress the importance of not relying on this lighting exclusively for your photography. You risk creating images that are stale and predictable.

To be fair, there are some photo industries and photography markets where this lighting will work all the time, say for example, sporting tournament and the like or similar higher volume demands.

Yours in lighting,
Rob

“If you want to be a profitable and successful photographer, then study profitable and successful photographers.”

Filed Under: Photography Lighting&Posing Tips Tagged With: photo lighting tips, photo tips, photography business, photography marketing, portrait photography tips

“The Dramatic Portrait” by Chris Knight…a book review

January 13, 2018 By Robert Provencher Leave a Comment

Pick up your copy HERE

Filed Under: Photography Lighting&Posing Tips Tagged With: chris knight, lighting tutorials, the dramatic portrait

Fast and easy light painting a la John Hartman

January 3, 2018 By Robert Provencher 2 Comments

A while back I hosted a webinar with John Hartman on his light painting style. Admittedly, one can’t cram too much into a 1.5 hour online webinar.

John puts on a three day workshop to teach this stuff. You can see more info on John’s light painting workshops HERE

That didn’t stop me from giving it a go. I thought about it long and hard, and came up with my own fast and easy light painting hack.

Here it is…..first thing I did was create a custom white balance based on the LED lights I was using. I don’t shoot raw, so, in theory, this should solve the problem.

Here’s the grey card set up I used to create a custom white balance.

I scoped out locations weeks prior to the shoot.  I had the car ready to go, a 2006 limited edition Ford Shelby.

I decided on an area that looked industrial. I wanted something “Mad Max” like.

In our city their are mines everywhere. Problem is trespassing. More on that in a minute.

I set up the car before the sun dropped:

Shooting with my Sony A7Rii, 55MM Zeiss lens. Exposures to 30 seconds, ISO 100 F8

The camera is locked down and not to be touched during the shoot. Each exposure is fired by my assistant using the Play Mobile app made for the Sony system.

It works off my Android and does the job just fine, showing us a preview of each exposure should we need to inspect as we go along.

Here’s the area we decided on. Still light in the sky.

I started painting the ground under the car. You can see the sky show up when in fact is was quite dark to the human eye. This didn’t matter for these exposures since I was planning on only using the area under the car.

You can see blurred out parts of my body as I was moving around, “painting” the ground.

After two hours, over 40 exposures, a few mosquitoes and an encounter with the security guard-who told us to get out- this is what I created. Most of the magic happens in photoshop, as I brought in each image and erased only what I needed. I also added color to the light under the car.

It’s not perfect, and I had to sneak in one last 30 second exposure to paint the tires, with the security guard glaring over me (I whispered to my assistant..” quick, fire the camera one last time”..and I gave each tire about 10-15 seconds of light so I had something to work with in that area.) but it worked out nevertheless.

What I discovered was:

  • planning is key. Dedicate time to scoping out  a great location with very little to no ambient light. I suppose a calm day is a good idea, since wind may moves things around. If you’re off by one pixel you’ll have problems
  • mosquito repellent is a good idea
  • shoot raw. I don’t, but I think you should
  • attend one of John’s workshops. I’d like to one day. John seems to be making great sales with his light painting creations.
  • I actually enjoyed this experience. I didn’t think I would, but I’d do it again in a flash
  • I actually enjoyed the photoshop portion too! I really didn’t think I would. But it went smooth and it felt like I was creating a work of art

Yours in photography,

Robert Provencher

“If you want to be a profitable and successful photographer, then study profitable and successful photographers.”

Filed Under: Photography Lighting&Posing Tips Tagged With: digital painting, light painting, light painting with john hartman, lighting tutorials, photo lighting tips, photography business, photography webinars

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