It’s all in the eyes

”The eyes are the windows to the soul”…or so goes the cheesy aphorism.

In portrait photography, the eyes are the first thing you engage with.

So I find it a real shame that a lot of photographers make a real mess of the eyes. You have to get the eyes looking good to create a striking image of a person.

Some key points:

-Try to close the pupils (the dark park of the eye). The iris (the colourful part of the eye) is the most beautiful. The brighter the light you’re working with, the more the pupils will close. However, bright DIRECT light can be very uncomfortable as well as unflattering (imagine having someone look straight into the sun- uncomfortable, unflattering and dangerous).

One solution to this is to REFLECT the light into the eyes.

In the shot below, which I took during my one-to-one workshop the other day, I placed the model, Jonna, in the shade and used the street in front of her, which was receiving direct sunlight, as a reflector.

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As you can see, the curved reflections of the sunlit street gives added shape to the eyes, as well as throwing rings of light across the pupils.

This isn’t textbook lighting technique, but it’s one way of doing it.

-Eye reflections are commonly referred to in photography as ”catchlights”. It’s worth spending some time setting up your shot to produce neat, flattering catchlights. If you have too many reflections in the eyes, it can look a real mess.

-Move your subject to maximise the effect of light in the eyes. A few centimetres can make a big difference.

-Don’t leave it to chance. ”Dead” eyes don’t look attractive.

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Workshop with Pamela Beck

Last week I taught a couple of one-to-one photography lessons to Hollywood screenwriter Pamela Beck, who was in town for a few days on business with her husband.

We had a really good time, running through the basics of composition, camera controls, lighting, and my favourite topic: photographing people!

We hired Jonna Hallberg to be the model for the second session. I was encouraging Pamela to do strong, tight, contextualised compositions and engage with her subject, as well as using the camera settings to be in control of the creative result, rather than ”’hoping for the best”. Here are some of the results. Not bad, huh?

If you’d like to learn how to take pictures like these, please get in touch and join one of my workshops. Thanks!

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Pamela_Jonna_2

Pamela_Jonna_3

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Quick update

Apologies for the lack of updates recently.

Quick summary of what I’ve been doing:

-An interesting commission shooting inside a new power station- bit of a departure for someone who usually does portraits and fashion but I’m up for a challenge!

-Loads of portrait sessions, private and commercial

-Haiti project- €200 banked in so far, with a bit more to come. Thanks to everyone who participated- it will make a REAL difference!

-The Brandery Barcelona- big fashion trade show in Barcelona. Bigger this time round- saw some cool stuff. Interesting to see how this will grow over the next few seasons.

-Working on updating my new website- if anyone has ideas on what they’d like to see, let me know! :)

-Workshops- I now do one-to-one sessions as well as groups when time allows- if you’re interested, drop me a line.

Also happy to note that my brother, James, author of the 10minus9 blog, is moving to Barcelona in the next couple of weeks!

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Shooting the accountant

A few days ago I photographed Alex Martin of MH Associates for my Haiti project. Alex is a good guy and I wanted to create an image that conveyed the things that struck me about him while we were talking: intelligence, approachability and strength of character (if you’re reading this, Alex, I hope your head hasn’t got too big!)

In this post I’m going to walk you through the thinking process to get the shot.

Contrary to popular belief, the best light in which to take portraits isn’t bright sunlight. It’s much better when it’s cloudy, or early/late in the day when the sun is low.

The reason for this is the difference between so-called hard and soft light.

We call light ”hard” when the source is small compared to the subject. The shadows tend to be deep, angular, and are not very flattering for portraits (usually).

The sun may be very big in reality but its apparent size is very small. So in bright sunlight, you will tend to get very hard light.

When it’s cloudy, the sun’s light is scattered (diffused) through the clouds, and the shadows produced are much gentler.

However, on a nice cloudy day you might need MORE light, in which case flash can come in handy. You might need more light simply because it’s too dark, or if you want to use a higher f/stop on your lens (higher f/stop = more depth of field in your image).

You can see the setup in the photo below (click to enlarge):

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I put the umbrella in the line of the sun because I wanted the shadows to fall in the same place and not be scattered around. I also wanted only one pair of reflections in the eyes. A general rule when using flash is this:

It shouldn’t LOOK like there is more than one light source, even if there is.

The reason for this is that we only have one sun, so if there are multiple shadows coming from different angles, it looks unnatural. (Of course there might be exceptions to this rule sometimes, but it’s a good one to try and follow). A lot of  photographers totally mess up the lighting for their portraits because they are sloppy in setting up the lighting.

Personally I like to keep things simple if I can, so I worked with a single strobe and umbrella. Umbrellas provide flattering, soft light and also produce nice round ”catchlights” in the eyes.

The light reading for the subject without flash (at ISO 200) was about f/2.8 at 1/125 sec. I wanted around f/9, which is about 16 times more illumination on the subject (f/4 is 2x, f/5.6 is 4x, f8 is 16x) than what Mother Nature was giving me. So I switched on the flash and adjusted it until I got good exposure for f/9 at 1/125.

If this is confusing, just experiment and you will get the hang of it- intuition is better than maths in photography! or e-mail me and I will try to help!

Here is one of the results:

Alex_1283_edit_web

Notes:

You can see there is just one pair of catchlights in the eyes- in your own shots, watch out for multiple reflections in the eyes!

I positioned the umbrella slightly to Alex’s right. As you can see, this had the effect of putting a bit of shadow on one side of the face, which gives it more definition and depth

About my subject:

Alex Martin is a founder and owner of Martin Howard Associates, which provides accounting and consulting services in Barcelona. He’s helped me out a lot with running a business in Spain, and I can definitely recommend his services.

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Quick improvised portrait/ 10 tips for portraiture

I shot this image of one of my workshop students in the streets of Barcelona:

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I was demonstrating the importance of getting the subject at ease. She looks relaxed, doesn’t she? Yet this is the first time she had been photographed like this and we only met a few hours before.

Here are some tips to improve your own portraiture:

1) Talk about subjects that elicit a positive response (friends, family, holidays, good food and so on)

2) Encourage your subject to look *through* the camera rather than at it

3) Don’t keep the camera in front of your face the whole time- use eye contact to build comfort

4) Move backwards and forwards to get different perspective (I nearly always use a fixed or prime lens- i.e. a lens without a zoom, forcing me to think about composition)

5) NEVER ask anyone to smile. This produces a horrible, fake result. If you want them to smile, they have to WANT to smile!

6) It often helps to be slightly above your subject

7) A gentle touch on the shoulder can help to build rapport (though you have to be sensitive to whether this is appropriate- it isn’t always)

8) Lock focus on the eyes- make sure the camera isn’t focused on something else!

9) Think about how the shadows are falling on your subject- ugly shadows can destroy a beautiful face. If necessary, move! This picture was taken late in the day and the light was soft (diffused). This means that the transition from shadows to highlights across her face are nice and smooth. In bright sunlight the shadows are much blacker and angular. Not pretty.

10) Use whatever props are to hand to keep things rolling- I wanted my subject to be sitting down, so I lent her my jacket to act as a cushion!

In this case I also shot ”wide open”, meaning a very large aperture (f/1.8), creating very shallow depth of field, which blurred out the background as you can see. This helps to separate the subject from the background.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to take good pictures, my next workshop will be on 6th February!

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Photo shoot for Haiti with Juan Delgado-UPDATED

UPDATE: here’s another image from the shoot:

headshot_0864-Edit_web

Today I met up with Juan Delgado, AKA Manel Vega, to shoot some pictures for my Haiti project.

Juan comes from The Dominican Republic, which as you know is right next door to Haiti. After the shoot we recorded a quick video where he spoke about his thoughts on the project and its connection to his part of the world:

Juan is an outstanding singer.

I usually put music on if we’re shooting inside, but as we were working to a tight timeframe, I forgot.

Lucky me, because he decided to break into song, and we got some good pictures.

A key part of portrait photography is getting the subject into the right frame of mind. What they are feeling is reflected in their face. That doesn’t mean you have to get them to smile- I never ask anyone to smile. I will blog about this in a separate entry.

Some images from the shoot (I’m still editing but hey, I thought I should just get some images up here and run with those)…

JM_Delgado_0835_travelator_web

This was taken in the Metro (underground) system. I wanted to capture a modern, relaxed but dynamic vibe. The image was shot at high ISO in artificial light.

I shot the next image while Juan was singing. He was sitting on a ladder and I set up a strobe and umbrella to camera right. This was to pump up the ambient light which was also coming in from camera right.

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Charity Portrait Sessions for Haiti Earthquake Appeal

After a night of partying last night I checked out this photoreportage by David Levine in Haiti following the massive earthquake, which may have left 200,000 people dead.

There ain’t no partying in Haiti. If you haven’t seen how bad the destruction is there, have a look at Levine’s pictures.

We’re desensitised to much of the suffering in the world and I count myself among the desensitised.

But I haven’t felt so moved by a series of images since the 2004 tsunami struck in the Indian Ocean. UN Secretrary General Ban Ki Moon described the earthquake as ”the worst humanitarian crisis in decades”.

Anyway, I’d like to help these people out by offering 5 portrait sessions at a special rate of €50. 100% of the money raised will be donated to Doctors without Borders (Medicos sin Fronteras). This is a charity that I already support, know and trust to do good work (and yes, of course I will provide documentation to show where the money has gone).

The portrait sessions will be in Barcelona or perhaps another location if I just so happen to be there.

What type of sessions am I offering?

-1 hour portrait sessions of individuals at a convenient, central location (we can arrange this together)

-Non-commercial images suitable for CVs, social media or personal use

You can check out my work here.

If you want to participate, contact me directly either via email or phone on +34 622 075 396

If take up for this is big, I might offer more sessions, time allowing.

Thanks everyone, and let’s see if we can use photography to make a difference in Haiti.

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Beach fashion shoot with Jonna (and popup flash)

I shot this image of Jonna Hallberg a few days ago on the beach in Barcelona. It was near the end of the shoot, it was 7 degrees and we had almost no light left, but the available light was this weird purple colour. There was a gust of wind and I caught this image using a simple pop-up flash. No fancy equipment.

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Street fashion shoot for Cool Hunt Los Angeles/10 tips for street fashion shoots

A few days ago I was commisioned by LA-based agency Cool Hunt to shoot street fashion for a Japanese magazine in Barcelona.

All corners of the globe coming together!

Basically my task was to photograph trend-setting women on the streets of Barcelona. I was assisted by Dutch photographer Irina Boersma.

As is pretty standard, I can’t show you the images until they’ve been published, but I can talk through some tips for anyone who wants to attempt an assignment like this.

1. Look for people who stand out. People are interested in fashion so that they can get ideas about what they might like to wear, or simply to feast their eyes on nice-looking people in cool clothes!

2. When approaching potential models, be completely up-front about what you’re doing. Explain who you’re shooting for (even if it’s just yourself), have business cards ready, and be sure you are on the right side of the law regarding model releases in your country (more on this below) . Be friendly and work quickly!

3. Emphasise the clothes. Avoid clutter, avoid other people in the background, and make the clothes stand out. One reason why models often have rather blank or neutral expressions in fashion photography is to make the viewer focus on what they are wearing. However…

4. Don’t just focus on the clothes themselves- look at the way that different items have been combined, in terms of colours, textures, styles, etc. and how they have been complimented with accessories and jewelry.

6. Choose backgrounds that compliment your subject and avoid clutter. Here’s an image of my friend Grace which I shot a couple of months ago:

As she was wearing a t-shirt with a lot of red, I chose a red wall (which was conveniently there!) as a backdrop to emphasise the colours in her clothes.

7. Work light. Don’t carry tonnes of gear. If you start messing about with too much stuff, it will slow you down, irritate your subject, and make you look silly. In the studio it’s different- here, speed is key.

8. Usually, for editorial purposes, model release forms aren’t necessary, but if you’re planning to make money from the images, you’d better cover yourself and be sure of the law in your country.

9. Look to other photographers for inspiration. Scott Schuman, AKA The Sartorialist, is one of the world’s most famous street fashion photographers. He isn’t (IMHO) the best fashion photographer from a technical point of view, but he has a fantastic eye for the inspiring and unusual. Check out his work here.

10. If you want to get paid work doing this kind of thing, you’ll need a strong portfolio and a good understanding of fashion. In fact the world’s top fashion photographers have as good or better a knowledge of fashion as they do photography, and this is part of what they get paid for.

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Self portraits

I’ve shot a couple of self-portraits lately.

Doing a good self-portrait is tricky, because in portraiture you try to engage with your subject, get them to shine, as it were…and with self-portraiture you have to do this with yourself, combined with all the technical issues associated with shooting this way.

Here’s the first image:


I took this picture using a self-timer, with my camera linked to a studio flash positioned overhead, with a softbox attached.

I took some test shots and found a position that worked well. I also had to be careful with the positioning of the light because (as always) if you point the centre of your flash directly at the subject, even with a reflector, you will get a horrible ”hotspot” on the subject’s face. So I tilted the flash so that the light was feathered across my face and body rather than blasted straight at me.

I shot this picture specifically for my Twitter account. I wanted people to be able to look at my page and immediately realise what I do and what I’m about.

Here’s the next image. I shot this on my way home from a shoot. I’m standing in the lift just outside the front door of my apartment in Barcelona.


I was messing about here. There wasn’t much light, so I put my camera on high ISO and experimented. The first tricky thing here was composition, because as you can see, I wasn’t looking through the viewfinder. Trial and error and a wide lens solved the problem ( a wide lens because the field of view is bigger, so you can fit more in).

There were also issues of metering, because as you can see, the light at the top of the lift is much brighter than the rest of the scene. This ”tricked” the camera into thinking it was much brighter than it was, so I had to use exposure compensation to brighten up the rest of the scene.

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New banner image

You might have noticed that I’ve changed the banner image on the blog (Thanks to Jamie Archer for technical support here and for the advice on CSS and Firebug). Can you guess what it is?


Here’s the original image:



It’s a metro station, shot on a long exposure through a train window at high speed on crazy camera settings, i.e. extreme contrast and saturation. If you haven’t experimented with these settings on your camera, give it a go. You won’t regret it.

I rotated the image in Photoshop and cropped the banner image from there!


One way to use an image I otherwise would have thrown in the trash.

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Don’t let your camera decide: early rising

I shot this at 7:15 yesterday morning from my living room window. I love the wintery light.

It’s one example of why you need to learn to control your camera rather than letting it decide what to do all the time.

To get richer, more saturated colours and more of a moody look, I shot at ISO 400 and used exposure compensation of -2stops. (That means I told the camera to underexpose from what the meter was telling me to do).

This means that just 1/4 of the light that the camera ”wanted” was getting in. Otherwise the camera would ”want” to make the whole thing much brighter, which would have killed the mood.

C) Tom Hayton 2009

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I’m blogging again

I thought my days of blogging were over, as I’m active on a lot of social media platforms already, including:

www.facebook.com/tomhayton

www.linkedin.com/in/tomhayton

and of course, www.twitter.com/tomhayton

But I felt there needed to be a place where I could give more detail on what I’m up to. In the past I have killed off my blogs due to demands on my time, but I am willing to give it another go.

Feel free to post comments and questions- I will do my very best to respond to all of them! :)

Thanks!

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Projecte fotogràfic català/ Catalan Photography Project

(ENGLISH BELOW)

S’ha dit molt sobre allò que significa ser català, en termes de llegua, territori, cultura, historia i política.

Però no s’ha fet gaire per captar l’identitat visual dels catalans a través de la fotografia.

Estic fotografiant un bon número de catalans per capturar i representar aquesta identitat visual. I es traduirà en una exhibició.

Si t’agradaria formar part d’aquest projecte, o saps d’algú que hi estigui interessat, m’agradaria saber-ho.

Much has been said about what it means to be Catalan, in terms of language, territory, culture, history and politics.

Less has been done to capture the visual identity of the Catalan people photographically.

I am photographing a large number of Catalans to capture and represent Catalan visual identity. This will lead to an exhibition.

If you would like to be part of creating this, or you know someone who does, I would like to hear from you.

Thanks/merci!

Tom

(thanks to Israel for the translation into Catalan)

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