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The Austin SMUG learns about flash photography!
For our December meeting, the Austin SMUG was treated to a presentation on flash photography by Quest Couch, founder of LumiQuest. LumiQuest produces a variety of accessories designed to modify the light output of standard hot shoe flashes. Couch talked a little about his products and offered some insights to help demystify photography with small flashes.
First, Couch talked about how the size of a light source affects shadows:
- The rule of thumb is that the larger the light source is in relation to the subject, the softer the shadows will be.
- A small light source close to the subject or a large light source that is far away will result in harsh shadows.
He offered a great example using a common incandescent light bulb. Given the same distance from a subject, a clear light bulb will produce harder light than a white coated bulb. The white coated bulb produces harder light on its own than if a lamp shade were to be placed over it. This is because the clear bulb contains a tiny light source, a glowing filament. Adding a coating to bulb has the effect of creating a larger light source by dispersing the light over its surface. A lamp shade further increases the effect.
- You need a white or light neutral colored area to bounce off of- a dark surface won’t do much good.
- You also need to account for angle of the light since the light will bounce at the same angle – i.e. if the flash is at a 45 degree angle, then the light will bounce off at a 45 degree angle.
- Distance also comes into play- bounced light travels a greater distance than direct light, which has the effect of lowering its power.
Couch then talked about diffusion, which can be a confusing concept:
- A common misconception is that diffusion is the same thing as softening and this is not necessarily the case.
- Photographers often attach small diffusers to hot shoe flashes, which helps to scatter the light- this may be very beneficial when bouncing. However, it is important to remember that a small diffuser does not soften the light.
- The only way to soften the light is to increase the size of the light in relation to the subject.
- A diffuser must be considerably larger than a small flash for it to soften as well disperse the light.
Distance between foreground and background elements in a scene affects exposure. Couch explained the inverse square law in layman’s terms, basically stating that the distance between foreground and background elements in relation to the distance of the light will have an effect on how much the light falls off. If the light source is close to a subject, light will fall off quickly before it gets to distant elements in the background. This is because the distance to the background is greater than the distance of the light to the subject. If the light source were to be moved further back from the subject, the relative foreground to background distance is decreased in relation to the distance of light to the subject and therefore the effects of light falloff would be lessened.
Couch’s presentation wrapped up with a a brief introduction to Lumiquest’s product line. All of the Lumiquest light modifiers easily attach to any hot shoe flash. There are different products to help photographers with both bounce and direct light techniques. Lumiquest even makes substantially sized soft boxes that attach to hotshot flashes with velcro straps. These soft boxes greatly increase the size of a flash head and when placed close to a subject they can produce very soft light.
Submitted by Austin SMUG Scribe: Michael Connell
Michael enjoys photography in his spare time. Urban landscapes, night photography, and environmental portraits are his favorite photographic pursuits. He shoots with a Canon 5D and a Fujifilm X100.
The Austin SMUG welcomes a legend!
The Austin SMUG welcomed John Langford, a successful commercial, advertising, and editorial photographer, to their SMUG. Two years ago he decided he wanted to travel the world with a camera. He sold everything he owned and embarked on a journey around the globe that he dubbed “The Rompin’ Stompin’ Circus of Love Extended World Tour.” His travels have taken through over 20 countries, and the Austin SMUG was lucky enough to have him speak during a brief layover in Austin before he heads out for another year of world travel. There was so much interest in this SMUG event that our meeting had to be moved to a larger facility. Even then, it was almost standing room only at the First Universalist Unitarian Church in Austin with over 225 people in attendance.
John’s story is intriguing and exciting. He literally sold all of his possessions and was down to whatever necessities he could pack in a modestly sized bag when he started his journey. Even his camera equipment is rather downsized for a professional photographer. He chose to travel with only a Canon G12. Not only does this small camera make for light travel, it is also less intimidating when photographing people. An energetic and engaging speaker, John dove right in with a long slide show of images he captured around the globe, accompanied by interesting back stories. He showed some amazing shots of the places he explored and the people he met along the way. His shots are not your run of the mill snapshots. His images captured the personalities of people and the small details of their environments. A common theme in John’s images are creative captures of the small mundane details (he especially has a thing for brooms) that he said likes because they illustrate commonality in the world.
Averaging about a country visited per month, John has visited places such as Australia, Fiji, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Burma, and the list goes on. This was more than a sight seeing trip. John sought to actively engage with people along the way. He talked about saying “yes” to people and being open to opportunity. In Fiji, he ended up working with a marine biologist for a while, photographing fish in pristine waters with his G12 in an underwater housing. While in Cambodia, he landed a job teaching photography to children. On another leg of his journey, he was befriended by a monk who accompanied him as a passenger on a rented motorcycle!
Though he interacts with many interesting people along the way, John is a solo traveler. Of course, he misses his friends and a sense of community while traveling and he has to contend with the loneliness of solitude at times. He developed a mantra of empowering words that he speaks to himself in the lonely times. These words include “gratitude”, “peace”, “openness”, “creativity”, “joy”, “compassion”, “acceptance”, “humility”, “willingness”, “clarity”, “playfulness”, “expansiveness”, and “courage.”
John also shared a number of quotes that he finds inspirational. The most powerful in my opinion was that of Storm Jameson:
“Only one person in a thousand knows the trick of really living in the present. Most of us spend fifty-nine minutes an hour living in the past, with regret for lost joys or shame for things badly done (both utterly useless and weakening) or in a future which we either long for or dread. . . .There is only one minute in which you are alive, this minute, here and now. The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle. Which is exactly what it is—a miracle and unrepeatable.”
At the conclusion of John’s presentation, the audience erupted in a 2 minute long standing ovation. His words and images struck a chord with our group. Not everyone is in a position to take on an adventure like John. In truth, most of us can only vicariously live the adventure through his images and stories. Regardless, I believe everyone in attendance left inspired to live life a little more fully – maybe take a few more chances, maybe say “yes” when opportunity presents itself.
John’s images and the chronicle of his journey can be found on his site Cosmic Candid Camera. Prints of his travel images may be purchased on his site.
Submitted by Austin SMUG Scribe: Michael Connell
Michael enjoys photography in his spare time. Urban landscapes, night photography, and environmental portraits are his favorite photographic pursuits. He shoots with a Canon 5D and a Fujifilm X100.
The Austin SMUG learns about street photography!
The Austin SMUG held their meeting with discussions on street photography with local Austin photographer, Gary Gumanow. We had a record number of RSVPs and a great group of enthusiastic photographers who met at the Parish Hall of the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Austin. A couple of Gary’s friends even came down from Dallas.
Gary himself started photography at the age of 8 with his Kodak Brownie. By age 10, Gary spent time in the dark room with his father developing rolls of film. But sometime later, as life got busy, Gary stopped, but in 2004, he began again. Initially lured back in by digital photography industry, Gary realized that it lacked the tactile feedback that he craved. Black and white film is his medium of choice. And although he owns a digital camera, it is his film based Leica, Rolleiflex or Hasselblad cameras that he shoots with. Today, he has his own dark room where he develops and prints all his film.
Master photographers such as Elliot Erwitt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Garry Winogrand, and Lee Friedlander are his influences. Gary learns by observing, studying the photographs of others, and his own contact sheets. He likes and wants to create photographs that make you think “How did that happen?” He looks for images that suspend disbelief. He asks the question “Where’s the monkey?” What is the catch, what is the hook, or what makes the image interesting? He looks for irony.
While being an “old-fashioned” film photographer, Gary loves and has embraced social media, especially Flickr. He has made friends and contacts from around the world and likes to meet them in person when he travels. And the images on Flickr have also influenced his artistic direction. Back in 2004, Gary was primary a Urban Landscape photographer, creating black and white, square images with this Rolleiflex. He likes to find and document artistry, irony, and bad design in the urban, concrete jungle. However, Gary was frustrated by the people inevitably captured in his photographs that would impede on his urban composition.
In time and with influences from his Flickr artists and the masters, Gary came to realize that people in the urban fabric were not bad and actually made for great subjects. Initially, he approached street photography in a timid way by shooting from the hip. He admits to being really nervous. Over time, and with practice, he came to realize that you need to shoot from the viewfinder. You can’t be timid with street photography. You can’t shoot from afar with a telephoto. You need to have a wide-angle and get up close to your subjects.
Gary suggests using a small, quick camera with a non-zooming wide-angle lens. He shoots with a Leica M6 and a 28mm f2.8. He does not like shooting from the back of people or shooting people with sunglasses. Seeing the person’s face and their expression is key. Shooting passing shots, shooting from far away or streets without people also don’t interest him.
Gary’s passion for photography, and the street photography genre in particular, was very enticing. The audience had a great time and they really appreciated learning about the history, the practical How-Tos and art of a well shot street scene. There was laughter and real sense of enjoyment exploring this art of capturing that perfect split second.
Submitted by the guest Austin SMUG Scribe: Andy Atmtx
While Andy enjoys different types of photography, he is the most passionate about urban landscapes and architecture, especially at dusk or at night. He shoots with an assortment of Olympus Digital Pen cameras, a Sony NEX-5 and a Canon 7D.
The Austin SMUG learns about landscape photography!
The Austin SMUG group had about 40 photographers in attendance at the Parish Hall of the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Austin. This month’s presentation was by Laurence Parent, a well published landscape and travel photographer based out of Austin. Laurence has 41 books published to date, his latest being Photographing Austin, San Antonio, and the Texas Hill Country. He contributes regularly to Texas Highways, Texas Monthly, Texas Parks & Wildlife, New Mexico Magazine, Backpacker, and Down East. His commercial clients have included Southwest Airlines, Trex, BBVA Compass Bank, and Temple Inland.
Laurence travels all over the world to get his images, spending up to half of the year traveling. He shared many of his images with us, along with some stories of how captured them. He showed the group images taken from diverse places such as mountain tops, deserts, plains, and tight slot canyons and caves. Astonishingly, many of his images were shot with large format 4×5 cameras. He dragged a heavy load of equipment over great distances, many times in inclement weather, to get his shots.
Weather conditions are a big part of Laurence’s experiences. Being a landscape photographer, he has to accept what nature gives him to work with. In his view, the weather makes the shot and he has braved heat, cold, rain, snow, and dust to get the shots he needs for his clients. “Blue is boring” was one of his talking points as he shared dramatic landscape scenes that were captured in less than favorable conditions. If you want to shoot landscapes, you have to “just get out there,” Laurence admonished.
A variety of shots taken in rain, fog, snow, haze and dust were shown. Laurence demonstrated that is possible to get a stunning shot even when all you have to work with is a drab, overcast sky. His experience has taught him how to scout out an area to know where to be and at what time to catch the right light. Even a small sliver of light cutting through heavy cloud cover can make a huge difference. It takes patience and a lot of waiting around for the light to be right sometimes. It is also quite possible for nature to not cooperate at all and there is the real possibility of leaving empty handed after considerable effort and braving extreme elements.
The beauty and majesty of a good landscape shot often comes at a great price. Laurence’s specialty is not an easy path to follow for aspiring landscape photographers. He gave the group some insight into the behind the scenes life of a traveling landscape photographer. The reality is that he spends a lot of his time stuck in airports and on planes, driving for hours on highways and bad roads, and hiking through all sorts of terrain. Getting to the location for his shot can mean climbing hills and mountains, rappelling into a cave, and wading or swimming through deep water while keeping his gear dry.
Laurence fielded a lot of questions from the group. It was particularly interesting to hear that that he does very minimal post processing work. An outdoorsman at heart, he would rather be shooting than manipulating pixels on a computer. He does not employ any HDR or extensive Photoshop techniques. During image capture, he does use filters at times. The main two filters he uses are circular polarizers and split ND filters.
I think it is safe to say that everyone walked away with a new respect for how challenging landscape photography can be. Laurence’s experiences provided eye opening insight into the making of those perfect landscape photos we are accustomed to seeing in calendars or coffee table books. His images are stunning, and he was kind enough to give out some calendars that feature his images to those in attendance.
Submitted by Austin SMUG Scribe: Michael Connell
Michael enjoys photography in his spare time. Urban landscapes, night photography, and environmental portraits are his favorite photographic pursuits. He shoots with a Canon 5D and a Fujifilm X100.
The Austin SMUG learns how to shoot on a budget!
The Austin, TX SMUG group held its recent meeting with about 30 photographers at the Parish Hall of the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection. This month, we were treated to a presentation by Mark Daughn, a professional glamour and fashion photographer based out of Austin. His work has been published in numerous magazines including Elle, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, and Mystique.
Mark’s photography takes him on location around the world, often to exotic locations with fairly high budget assignments. Someone made a comment to Mark a while ago, stating that it was easy to get gorgeous images of models when you have a high budget to work with. Mark took that as a challenge and created the 50 Dollar Project.
The premise is simple: This year Mark is doing one model photo shoot a week with a per-shoot budget of $50. This includes everything associated with the shoot: model, makeup, wardrobe, equipment rental, and location fees.
Any existing equipment that Mark already owns is fair game to use for the project. It might be tempting to dismiss the idea of pulling off a shoot with $50 when Mark already owns tons of pro camera and lighting gear. However, he is keeping the lighting setups fairly simple and attainable by photographers with a modest amount of gear. Most of his project shoots this year were lit with single or dual light setups with inexpensive modifiers like umbrellas or grids. He also makes good use of natural light when possible.
A big priority for Mark is to keep the project fair. He has had opportunities to bring professional models, locations, and resources into his personal project through his commercial resources. True to the spirit of the project, he has not used any people or resources that he has not booked within the project guidelines. Yes, Mark has to seek out models through sources like Model Mayhem like the rest of us!
Mark talked about the obstacles he has encountered and how he pulled through when things went terribly wrong. On a small budget with limited resources, it is easy for things to not go according to plan. In one shoot, Mark discovered after 3 hours of frustration, that he isn’t very good at airbrushing body paint on a model and that using double sided tape to adhere jewelry to skin can produce unexpected consequences. At least a couple of the project shoots proved to be lessons in overcoming adversity and still coming away with quality images.
So, is Mark able to stay under budget? Yes. As of this SMUG meeting, he has done 15 weeks of shoots at a cost of just over $100. He has had great success finding models to work with him on a trade basis, and the majority of his expenses have been for things like snacks and cheap props or costume garments. This meeting was great for those of us who don’t normally get flown to exotic locations for location shoots with beautiful models, lots of equipment, and a gaggle of assistants!
Submitted by Austin SMUG Scribe: Michael Connell
Michael enjoys photography in his spare time. Urban landscapes, night photography, and environmental portraits are his favorite photographic pursuits. He shoots with a Canon 5D and a Fujifilm X100.
The Austin SMUG learns about customization!
The Austin SMUG group held its March meeting on Thursday, April 26. This was our largest meeting yet, with about 50 photographers in attendance at the Parish Hall of the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Austin.
A lot of folks in our SMUG had requested some assistance with SmugMug site customization, and our requests were answered by a visit from Melissa Crain of New Skin Media. Melissa is one of SmugMug’s Certified Customizers and her company specializes in creating advanced custom websites for every kind of photographer on SmugMug.
Melissa demonstrated some of the things that are possible on the SmugMug platform by showing off some of her clients’ sites. I believe many of us in attendance did not realize the potential for customization that is possible with SmugMug. Melissa’s customization work yielded some great results for her clients! Some of the sites were so radically different from what many of us were accustomed to seeing that it was almost hard to believe that they were customized SmugMug sites. She also showed us the layout that she uses on her own SmugMug site.
Melissa also talked about the importance of planning your site before you start making changes. Organization is a key factor here. You have to keep your clients in mind and lay things out in such a way that your site is visually appealing and easy to navigate. She recommended drawing your site layout first. Simple boxes and text are fine at this step. A good basic site layout is something like this:
Home
|_ Slideshow
About
|_ Photo & Bio
Portfolio
|_ Adventure
|_ Weddings
|_ Lifestyle
|_ Events
Services
|_ Photos & Descriptions
Clients
|_ Client Galleries
Contact
|_ Photo and Info
Once you know the structure of your site, you can start to build the framework and fill in the details. A lot of the basic tasks of site structure are done in the SmugMug Easy Customizer. Melissa walked us through this fairly simple interface that allows you to set the overall look of your site.
The Navigation Bar Builder is one of the most important customization options. This is where you will create links to direct your site’s visitors to the different areas of your site, such as your galleries, services, and contact information.
One tip that Melissa suggested was to just use a leading slash “/” when linking to your site’s internal pages. This will prevent broken links should you get custom domain name for your site. For example, instead of creating a link to “http://melissaraephoto.smugmug.com/Portfolio/Adventures” , just type “/Portfolio/Adventures/”.
All of the pages on a SmugMug site are based on galleries. We learned that a gallery doesn’t have to have any photos and that a gallery’s description can be populated with HTML to create a custom content page. Using the description field for a gallery, you can create a basic HTML web page with text and photos laid out however you like.
This comes in handy for something like an “About” page. The trick here is that SmugMug will display a warning when a gallery is empty. You don’t want your site visitors to see that! This warning is easily disabled with a bit of code that you can add to the CSS section of the Advanced Site-wide Customization section in your site’s Control Panel:
/******************************
* HIDE ‘THIS GALLERY NEEDS PHOTOS’
* BOX ON EMPTY GALLERIES
*****************************/
.notLoggedIn .emptyGallery {
display:none;}
Content pages are just one of the many ways to customize the look of your site on the SmugMug platform. Melissa was kind enough to send out a CSS file with a few of her favorite customization tweaks to those in attendance. If you are handy with HTML and CSS, the additional possibilities are almost limitless.
If you get stuck with a customization issue, help is available on SmugMug’s customization forum. Coding in HTML or CSS isn’t for everyone, and if you’re not comfortable diving into site customization on your own, you can find certified SmugMug customization professionals like Melissa in the forum to give you a hand.
Melissa also shared a couple of her favorite online tools that aid in site customization. Adobe Kuler is an easy to use tool for putting together a color theme for web sites. Wufoo is a form creation service that simplifies the addition of things like contact forms on your web site.
Melissa’s presentation really grabbed the group’s attention, and she fielded a lot of questions. Site customization is not a topic that can be thoroughly condensed down into such a short time frame, but Melissa did give us a good start in tweaking our SmugMug sites. In fact, I ran home and put her content page lesson into practice. I was able to condense my cluttered navigation bar by consolidating my social networking links down to a single content page!
Thanks to Melissa for visiting the Austin group and thanks to SmugMug for sending her out!
Submitted by Austin SMUG Scribe: Michael Connell
Michael enjoys photography in his spare time. Urban landscapes, night photography, and environmental portraits are his favorite photographic pursuits. He shoots with a Canon 5D and a Fujifilm X100.
The Austin SMUG welcomes Kirk Tuck!
The Austin SMUG group held its meeting with over 40 photographers in attendance at the Parish Hall of the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Austin. This time around, Kirk Tuck stopped by to talk about his favorite trends in lighting and camera gear.
Kirk is well known by many photographers for his informative and entertaining blog, The Visual Science Lab, in addition to his numerous books on photography lighting techniques. Kirk spent the majority of his presentation talking about and demonstrating LED lighting. When it comes to LED lighting in still photography, Kirk wrote the book!
Kirk discussed in detail the advantages of LED lights over studio strobes and hot shoe flashes. Some of the key advantages he sees in LED lights are:
- Efficiency: LED lights are a very efficient constant light source.
- Relatively Low Cost: Quality LED panels can be purchased for less than $200. Kirk used a 500 LED panel for his demo that cost around $180.
- Cool Operating Temperature: Compared with traditional constant light sources, LED panels run at a cool temperature. This helps keep your model a lot more comfortable.
- Color Temperature Adjustable: Some LED panels have variable color temperature controls.
- Versatility: LED panels can serve as hard or soft light sources with simple diffuser panels such a Westcott Fast Flag.
- WYSIWYG Lighting: Because LED panels are a constant light source, you immediately see how they will light your subject.
Of course, there are disadvantages and tradeoffs to be made when working with LED lights. LED panels do not produce light intensity on par with strobes or flashes, so you will need to work at higher ISOs, wider apertures, and possibly slower shutter speeds. The light from LED panels is very directional and because the panels are not very large the light is rather hard. You will almost always want to use diffusers with an LED panel.
LED light panels have become a huge part of Kirk’s portrait work. He brought along some of his gear for a demo of a typical LED portrait lighting setup with the help of pro model, Luana Lani, who just happened to be in attendance. Using multiple fabric diffusion flags, he showed how a relatively small LED panel could be transformed into a flattering soft light by moving the panel a good distance back from the fabric.
He invited those in attendance to take some shots of our lovely model while he demonstrated a few ways that he likes to position LED panels. In addition to his lighting tips, an extra bonus was observing the rapport Kirk has with his subjects. From a stranger on a street to the CEOs of major corporations, he knows how to turn on the charm and get the shot.
Kirk also talked about his recent switch from Canon DSLRs to the Sony A77 platform and why he is excited about EVF cameras. While LED lights let you immediately see the effects of your lights on your subject, EVF cameras let you see exactly what the sensor sees before you snap the shot. An EVF gives you a glimpse of everything from white balance to depth of field without having to capture an image and review it on typical camera back LCD screen. Kirk appropriately calls this capability “pre-chimping.” Many EVF cameras will even allow you to check focus with a magnified view of your focal point, which is something that an optical viewfinder can’t do.
When asked about the speed and resolution of EVFs, Kirk noted that they are getting better with each new iteration and the latest, such as that found on the Sony A77, are quite good. Kirk firmly believes that EVFs are not just a fad, but rather the direction that even pro cameras are headed. In addition to his new Sony A77, Kirk has done a lot of photography with micro 4/3 cameras for some time.
Submitted by Austin SMUG Scribe: Michael Connell
Michael enjoys photography in his spare time. Urban landscapes, night photography, and environmental portraits are his favorite photographic pursuits. He shoots with a Canon 5D and a Fujifilm X100.
The Austin SMUG learns about data loss prevention!
The Austin SMUG group held its monthly meeting with over 40 photographers in attendance at the Parish Hall of the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Austin. Alex Suarez, our group leader, has been doing a great job booking speakers for our meetings so we can grow and learn as photographers. This time around, our group welcomed Michael Sidoric to talk about digital asset management.
Michael started his presentation by sharing some inspirational images from National Geographic. As we looked at some wonderful shots, he asked the group to imagine if these were somehow lost or the files were deleted. According to Michael, a lot of great photographs come from being at the right place at the right time. You may get your shot of a lifetime and never again have that opportunity, which is why you need careful management of your digital assets. He takes a 3 step approach to digital asset management: Create, Catalog, and Conserve.
Creating is the first step you should take in order to protect your images. Michael emphasized the need to capture the best quality image files that you can. This means shooting in your camera’s raw format so that you capture and preserve everything that the camera saw when you clicked the shutter. He advocated buying the best memory cards for your camera that you can afford.
This is one area where some photographers might be tempted to save money and buy cheap cards, but this approach can lead to disaster if an inferior card fails. He said to stop and ask yourself what your images are worth when you buy your memory cards. Something else to bear in mind is that memory cards do not last forever. They do wear out with time and should be replaced periodically. Michael also encouraged us to be sure and label memory cards to help prevent accidental erasure.
Cataloging is the next step in the process. Michael advocated “ingesting everything” when you get back to your computer from a shoot and worry later about deleting what you don’t want to keep. The process of maintaining a catalog is about recording and preserving the data concerning your original images. A good application can help a great deal with this, such as Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture. His preference is Adobe Bridge, because it’s simple and robust interface with the added bonus of being included with Photoshop.
It is important to preserve detailed data about your images. All camera (EXIF) data should be kept and you should attach as much descriptive information to the image file as you can. Record the “who, what, when, and where” details when adding images to your catalog. In order to simplify the process of retrieving this information later, it was recommended that you adopt your own “controlled vocabulary”, i.e. a standard way that you use to describe your images.
Conserving is the final step in digital asset management. This is where data redundancy comes into play. Michael recommended a minimum of 3 copies of your images in at least 2 places. The original format (raw files) should always be persevered. Even if you save your raw files as DNG, he believes you should still preserve the raw file by embedding it in the DNG.
“No one cares about your stuff like you do,” Michael stated. There are a lot of hardware options out there, and you should find something that works for you. He advised staying with reputable brands and avoiding cheap hardware. Whatever you choose, you should keep in mind that all hardware will eventually fail. Routine monitoring of your disks is a prudent measure, and Michael recommended the application, Disk Radar, for keeping tabs on hard drive health.
Submitted by Austin SMUG Scribe: Michael Connell
Michael enjoys photography in his spare time. Urban landscapes, night photography, and environmental portraits are his favorite photographic pursuits. He shoots with a Canon 5D and a Fujifilm X100.
The Austin SMUG has a great time with Eric Doggett!
The Austin SMUG group has been on hiatus for a few months while a change in leadership was made. Many thanks goes to Jason St. Peter for doing a great job leading the group since its start! Alex Suarez has recently taken over the reins, and we just had our first meeting with a new leader at a new location- the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Austin.
We had a little over 40 photographers in attendance, and Eric Doggett kicked things off as our first speaker. Eric got into photography back in 2005 and gravitated toward portraits. He does a lot of editorial work, but his passion is creating images of people to tell a story with a humorous twist using composite editing for most of his images. In his presentation, Eric talked about the “why and how” of compositing. He also shared how he has found a profitable niche here in Austin by creating fun and creative Christmas cards for his clients using composite techniques.
Eric discussed some of the key reasons for creating an image with the composite technique:
1. Budget: It could end up being cost prohibitive to get subject(s), props, and equipment to a location.
2. Location: It may not be possible to get your subjects to the location. Perhaps, it is too remote or the nature of the location prohibits doing a staged portrait shoot with lighting equipment.
3. Reality: Is it even possible to shoot subjects in the environment that you have envisioned? Maybe your idea calls for your subject to be flying over a city? However, unless your subject has super powers, that shot calls for a composite.
Before beginning a composite shoot, Eric recommended sketching it out. What would it look like in reality? It is important to consider all the details carefully. When it comes time to shoot, there are technical details that you need to keep in mind.
The most important details are:
1. To keep the perspective of subject and background consistent. The same lens focal length should be used for the subject and the background.
2. Eric recommended using a tape measure to record the height of the camera when you shoot the background and use the same height to shoot the subject(s). A tripod is critical here.
3. Record the distance to the main foreground element in your background or where the subject(s) would be placed naturally. You’ll need to shoot your subject(s) at that distance to keep the perspective right.
4. You need to know the angle of the camera and replicate that when shooting your subject. A level is a useful tool here. The position of the subject(s) in relation to the background elements and lighting needs to be taken account. The subject’s feet are especially critical to get them placed correctly in the composite. If you are off, you may end up having to crop out feet to make the composite look right. Where the subject’s feet touch the ground is critical when compositing multiple people.
A key part of Eric’s commercial photography with composites is creating Christmas cards for families. This is a fun and creative way to build a profitable business with composite photography. While the task of creating composite images can look daunting, Eric did say that you don’t have to be extremely precise, because the cards are printed at such a small size. Even so, masking is not a favorite task of Eric’s. He even exclaimed: “I hate masking!” It was a rather odd thing for a photographer who does so much compositing to say! Eric admitted that he often outsources the masking work to Color Experts, a company that performs this task for a very reasonable price.
Eric’s presentation was a big hit and many of those in attendance expressed interest in trying their hand at composite photography. Eric was kind enough to stick around after the meeting and answer specific questions. I learned quite a bit and look forward to experimenting with Eric’s techniques myself.
Submitted by the Austin SMUG Scribe: Michael Connell
Michael got into photography in late 2009, and he enjoys creating images in his spare time. Urban landscapes, night photography, and environmental portraits are his favorite photographic pursuits. He shoots with a Canon 5D and a Fujifilm X100.
What’s a SMUG?
A SMUG is a place where you can learn, teach and meet up with other photographers who share your passion. Learn More!
Want to be a SMUG leader?
If you enjoy bringing people together and are stoked about sharing your know-how, we'd love to have you on our side to charter new and upcoming groups. Learn More!
SMUGs Podcasts
- SmugMug Podcast Series - Social Media: Getting started and best practices with Aaron Hockley April 17, 2013
- Capturing Love - A Guide to Gay and Lesbian Weddings March 1, 2013
- SMUGs Podcast Series Becoming a PRO - Podcast 3 - Jason Grubb from Jason + Gina Photography October 27, 2012
- SMUGs Podcast Series on Becoming a PRO - Podcast 2 - Gustavo Fernandez September 19, 2012
- SMUGs Podcast Series on becoming a PRO - Podcast 1 - Hanssie Trainor August 8, 2012
