Senior Portraits/5 in 1 Reflector

If you prefer natural lighting portraiture then you have to go buy a 5 in 1 reflector. They are affordable and come in different sizes. The different reflective surfaces are gold, silver, gold/silver mix, white, and you also get a light diffuser disc. What is it used for you may ask, well if you are shooting out in the midday sun and not in the shade, it will help get rid of the harsh shadows on your models face so you don’t have to use a fill flash. The results are much nicer than the harshness that can happen with a flash at times. I usually use the silver side, which gives a nice glow to the skin, or the white side which isn’t as strong as the other reflective surfaces. I don’t use the gold side too much because it usually just becomes too warm and the skin too golden but if you like that look, go for it. The diffuser disc also can be used to diffuse the light, just like the clouds would on a bright day, and give you a more softer, scattered light without harsh shadows. 

On this shoot for a local high school senior I used the silver and white sides of the reflector. All shots were taken between 1pm and 3pm when the sun is the harshest so without it I would have been searching for only places in the shade to shoot. I’m not an expert on senior portraits but if you are doing them, it helps to have an assistant, sometimes if willing it can be the parent to hold your reflector. Just make sure you put your model at ease and try to develop some rapport before you start shooting or else your model may look uncomfortable in the shots. 

Above are some random examples from the shoot. Photography by John Drake

Camera Angles / Worm’s Eye View

It’s always good to try shooting from different angles. What is worm’s eye? It’s just shooting an object or objects from the ground up, the opposite of bird’s eye view. I don’t shoot worm’s eye very often but every once in a while I’ll find myself putting my camera on the ground. Above are some random examples I pulled. Photography by John Drake

Photo Shoot On A Budget

When you have to do a photo shoot on a budget, it’s best to know the area you live in well enough to find some decent locations. Back in July 2010 my cousin was in town from Columbus Ohio and called me to see if I would shoot some photos for him to use to promote himself and his band. I agreed but we only had a couple of hours and all I had with me was my camera and nothing else.

If you have to do it fast, find places that may bring some interest to your photo. When you are driving or in different areas of your city make a mental note of interesting places to shoot. In the past I lived in San Diego and Charlotte and there are more options if you are in a bigger city but even in a smaller city like I am now the options are still pretty endless if you spend some time looking for them. I squeezed in several hundred shots in the couple hours we had at as many locations as possible. They are not all great but here are some examples. Remember those locations! Photography by John Drake

Brassaï

What can I say, Brassaï and Cartier-Bresson are two of the best, both captured Paris in their own unique way of street photography. Check out his work because he is one of the originals, one of the first to capture street art and graffiti as well. Hopefully you will learn something by viewing the masters and be influenced to create something great of your own!

Brassaï images

Arthur Fellig / Weegee

With so many photographers out there it’s always good to know who the best are, so I’ll start with Weegee. He was a photojournalist and self taught photographer who worked in the Lower East Side of Manhattan mostly following emergency services. His signature style of raw black and white depictions of urban life are just amazing. The guy even travelled with a moving darkroom in his car trunk so he could make prints on the spot and get them out to news services as fast as he could. Most of his famous photographs were shot with very basic press photography equipment, a 4 x 5 Speed Graphic camera preset at f/16 at 1/200 second with flashbulbs and a set focus distance of ten feet. 

He is considered the American counterpart to France’s Brassaï who I will talk about another time because his work is original and just as good. 

International Center of Photography - Weegee

Amber Online - Weegee

Continuous Subjects

I am asked often about how to build a body of work, how to select works for exhibit, or how to get better at photography in general. The best answer is just to keep shooting and after a while you will be able to look at your body of work and see subjects or styles that keep re-appearing. You will begin to see things that go together or work together well and hopefully you will develop a style but always try to expand what you shoot and experiment in how you shoot.

Another way is to pick a continuous subject, I have a few of them and this tree right outside my bedroom window is one of them. It’s just another good way to get to know your camera and camera settings better, to experiment and see what works. I have shot this tree through all seasons, every time of day through different weather, hand held and tripod. This tree is always there so it’s up to me to try to make a cool image out of it with only a small window to shoot from. So now is the time to pick something and shoot it for the next couple years as much as you can, you will be happy you did!

Photography by John Drake

Stay Strapped

This is my neighbor’s dog and I see it all the time but never in this exact spot under a huge pine tree by the fence. I could shoot this dog every day for the next five years and never see this shot/composition again. Fortunately for me I had my camera and the lighting was really nice, so I got the shot. I had just walked out my front door with my dog and there it was. I guess what I’m getting at is you never know when that shot is going to pop up so have your camera around your neck as much as you can. I can’t tell you how many shots I’ve missed, and how many I’ve been able to take at the right moment because I did or didn’t have one around my neck. It’s always those ones that get away that you think about. Photography by John Drake

1/30 sec./f13/spot meter/ISO 500/50mm 1.8

How To / Hand Held

You can find a cool photo anywhere, this one is a hand held night shot from the lights that wrapped around the rail on my front porch. I shot this photo using aperture priority mode so I selected the aperture and my camera did the rest. Sometimes this works well, others you will have to manually set everything to get the image you want. 

The way I shot it hand held was to use spot metering with selective focus and meter right at the brightest point of the light I was focusing on. My camera selected a high ISO - 1600 for greater light sensitivity that in conjunction with a large aperture - f1.8, gave me a faster shutter speed. That faster shutter speed is what enabled me to shoot it hand held and get no motion blur. The large aperture I chose is what gave me the shallow focus / depth of field and cause the background lights to blur to bubbles. Try it out!

1/500 sec./f1.8/spot meter/ISO 1600  

Photo by John Drake

BLANK GALLERY →

Here is a link to the gallery I’m involved with. Check it out and follow if interested.

Self Portraits

Why should you do self portraits? It is a very self absorbed thing to do no doubt but they have a long history in art and most artists do them. The reason I do them is to experiment with lighting and camera settings, and just to experiment overall. If you have external flashes, strobes, studio lighting or any of that good stuff then you just have more toys to use for experimentation. I tend to favor doing natural light or a single light source when I do them, but have played around with different lighting setups over the years. Some people like Cindy Sherman are really good at them and her body of work consists of morphing herself into someone totally different through extensive hair, makeup and set work.

There are so many different styles and the possibilities are endless with what you can do. Besides Sherman there are many other artists that solely do self portrait work, so if you are looking for ideas you always have google. Don’t be afraid to experiment, it will help you get to know your camera better which will translate to everything you shoot. 

Photography by John Drake