Inspirational Photographers

Inspiration, sometimes this is a large word that is hard to obtain. Recently though I have found lots of sources of inspiration some so good, that I thought I would share my notice of their creative genius.

(I do not want to steal anyone’s images so I have linked to the respective photographers so you can check them out for yourself. So, there will be no photos of the mentioned photographers on the blog today.)

Steven Meisel

This is an easy one, for me he is the father of fashion photography. When I first saw his images for Italian Vogue (September 2006) titled State of Emergency showing supermodels being arrested as terrorists, I was awestruck. It was the first time I saw fashion making a statement about the wider world.

Fashionphotographyblog.com (Melissa Rodwell)

I was added as a contact on Flickr by the above site, and at the time I had never hear of it or Melissa Rodwell. But after looking through her Flickr portfolio and her website I was seriously impressed. However do not take my word for it go and have a look yourself, the blog is a resource that should not be missed for anyone that has an interest in fashion and photography.

Chris Friel

WOW, this guy inspired me to write this blog page from his creativity. I saw his photos on a one trip on Flickr explore, his images look more like a painting and I was amazed that how a so called technically “bad” (hand held long exposure) image can become a work of art. I would never have even thought to try, seriously check out this guy’s portfolio it is amazing.

My effort at a Chris Friel style image: -

Conclusion

I hope you get as much from these sources as I have.

Till the next one, much love.

Why I don’t use a light meter

Time for a really short post.

So, to answer the question above (the short version). I shoot digital, I look at the back of the screen at the aesthetics of the image. If it looks right, then that is near enough for me!

Put another way, I do not need the information overload of “this light is at f/8 and this light at f/4.” Thus I do not need to know if one light is half the power of the other etc.

How I work;

1) Test shot exposed for the ambient / max flash sync speed;

2) I put the lights on one by one individually, so that I can see what each light “does” and how those lights work together;

3) At this point I put all the lights on at minimum power and get an exposure at this point;

4) Given the exposure from point 3) I change the power of the lights to give the aperture I want creatively for the shot;

5) Final test shot and at this point I should be ready to shoot.

This process should take all of 2 minutes. This saves circa £300 on a light meter, this saving means another 1st party TTL flash unit etc.

Getting the most out of your camera, specifically the 5D Mark 2?

I for one am not. When the Canon 5D mark 2 was released in November 2008 I was one of those people that went gooey in anticipation.

The videos from Vincent Laforet were fantastic, The demo stills were breathtaking. So I happily parted with my money and did not really look back.

Reflection

Reflection is an important learning tool in our development as human beings. So on reflection was it the “right” choice?

Conclusion

The short answer is no. The long answer is that the 5D mark II is a fantastic camera but I don’t need all of its capabilities, Its RAW files are big and thus it takes longer to edit them. I shoot still and it does the job very well.

My biggest bug bear is the video feature, to quote the advert “I am a PC” and I cannot edit the video smoothly. On a Macbook it just works. I want to shoot more video but find myself shying away from the nightmare that is post production on a PC.

In total I have made 3 videos, 2 edited with Final Cut and Final Cut Pro (which was easy) the final video was made using a Cineform plugin to strip out the video and then added back with MP3 sound in PowerDirector. It was a hideous workflow which I have not repeated.

I have been told that Pinnacle Studio 14 is very good but have yet to try it personally.

My first attempt below: -

My second attempt: -

My third attempt: -

As you can see I need a lot more work before LaForet will be worried!

What I should have done

With the benefit of hindsight, I was very naive and thought that a camera would make me a better photographer. At the time I had no concept of how lighting, lens and better post production would have improved my photography better towards the images that I wanted to emulate more then a new camera body.

Thus at the time I wanted the definition and wide angle of a full frame body and combined with the fact that in the last year I have not used the video function, I should have bought a 5D mark 1 and then invested then remaining money in prime lens or Canon’s L series F/2.8 zooms.

If you have had any experience with editing the 5D video please post in the comments. I would love to hear a simple PC workflow for this camera.