Flowers are a main-stay of all photographers. They’re beautiful, so how could you not take a picture of them? I am no different, and while flowers are some of the most photographed pieces of nature, they always offer something new every time you press the shutter button.
Scouting is as important of a component of photography as hitting the shutter button itself. Scouting, for me, is a time to plan. It’s thinking about possible compositions, lighting set ups and just the overall mood of the photo I’m trying to capture. In planning, scouting helps you over come any number of unexpected problems that tend to crop up when you’re setting up your day’s shoot. Bad weather on the horizon? Look around and formulate a plan B. Mid-day Sun beating down your subject? Again, it’s the process of just looking around that will help you find a better location with a bit of shade to offer you some respite from harsh over head light.
I’ll even re-scout locations I’ve shot at before. It’s good to have a few go-to spots where you know you can get what you need out of your photo, but it’s also a good idea to keep things looking fresh especially if you’re shooting in a familiar locale. Tomorrow is just such a day for me. I’ll be shooting a portrait in two days time at a location I’ve used twice before. The good news is it’s a large area. I’ll re-scout the spot tomorrow to make sure that when I show up on set the day after I’ll have a good idea of where I want to shoot.
Don’t be idle! Keep moving and looking!
Water & Sun
Here in Canton, we have have a great park known as Water Works Park. The park is actually a chain of parks including Stadium Park, McKinley Memorial Park and City Field Park in addition to the aforementioned Water Works Park. Through this park chain there are a multitude of locations for photography. Some areas are great for fitness photography, some are great for high school senior photos and some are perfect for bridal and engagement photo shoots. The landscape of the park changes dramatically along it’s length so you should never be left wanting for a change of scenery. Along side the park runs the Nimishillen Creek, which is actually classified as a river. This sheet of running water can also serve as a backdrop for photos shot near its banks.
One of my favorite places to shoot is in an area known as the Garden Center & Children’s Garden. This area is filled with trees and all types of wonderful flowering flora, changing dramatically depending on which season you visit. A small creek runs through the gardens off to the side through a series of stone walled water falls. This is another great area to shoot along. This side of the garden also offers a lot of shade to help photographers who have a shoot scheduled in the mid-day sun.
Brides can be photographed in both the Garden Center and the Children’s Garden easily from almost any angle, although you do have to be careful in some areas since the background can be cluttered with structures. With some careful planning you should be able to work around this easily.
Place your subject on a hill and shoot up at them to convey confidence and strength.
For Business or High-School Senior portraits there is a wonderful trail that winds alongside another smaller creek on the western edge of the park. One of my favorite places here is a small waterfall with steps where you can take both standing and sitting portraits against an interesting backdrop of either water or trees. If you get there at just the right time (around 7:30-8:30 pm in the spring/summer) you can actually catch the suns light peeking through the arches of the waterfall’s bridge. The McKinley Monument, only 100 yards or so west of this point, also serves as a strong backdrop for those moments when your photo may need to convey strength or longevity. Try placing your subject’s back to the monument and shoot down the wall towards them with a shallow depth of field.
Because the park winds around with the river you should be able to move to a new location to effectively change the sun’s impact on your subject. Evenings after 5pm are best since the morning day sun rises over a row of houses instead of the trees that line the western side of the park.
Photographers in larger cities often have a ton of go-to locations for photography while those of us in slightly smaller cities really need to dig deep to find of those over looked gems. While Water Works Park is no secret, it’s not used nearly enough, in my opinion, as a backdrop in photos. In an upcoming article I’ll talk about how photogs in smaller cities can scout out promising locations that offer both easy access and unique looks.
Earlier this week I added a new piece of gear to my already hefty camera bag – the Aputre Trigmaster Plus II 2.4G. Up until now, I haven’t had a lot of uses for good, reliable wireless triggers. For my studio lights I’d usually lay out a long sync cord attached to a separate power adjuster. When I used my speedlites I had to rely on some very cheap, and actually very unreliable, wireless triggers. But recently, I’ve been working on shoots that are larger in physical scale, and that increased distance meant it was time to find a trigger that would be reliable at greater range.
If you search the photography forums you’ll see that most photogs will recommend the PocketWizard brand time and time again – and for good reason, I should add. They didn’t earn that loyalty through shoddy quality. But PocketWizards can be a bit on the (very) expensive side and as the number of lights in your photographic arsenal grows so will your need for triggers. This is why I decided to give the Aputure brand of triggers a go. The reviews for these things so far have been pretty stellar and even though I’ve only had the chance to use them on one shoot so far I certainly got the feeling that these are every ounce as professional as their more pricey counterparts.
Like the PocketWizards they do cool things such as channel selection so you can run your triggers near other photogs without interference. You can also set triggers to zones, so you can fire only specific strobes individually or all at once (useful at things like weddings where you may have several flashes set up in an area and only want to target specific sections of a room). The advertised range is fantastic as well – up to 500m, although I haven’t truly tested it any anywhere near that limit. They feel sturdy and hefty too, and in no way cheap. The only downside I have found so far is the styling. While PocketWizards tend to look like next generation stealth aircraft, the Trigmaster Plus II looks like it comes from a pre-Chernobyl era.
Oh, and then there’s the price. These things are less than half the price of their rivals. For that you’re getting nearly all same features and build quality for half the cost. Feel free to compare the prices on Amazon when you get the chance.
It’s easy to load in a new brush!
Retouching is an important part of any portrait, whether it’s a wedding, engagement, or high school senior’s photo. Most people are used to the airbrush technique, and since in the early days of photo retouching an artist would use an actual airbrush to do this, it’s no wonder why people still use the default airbrush tool in Photoshop today to pretty much the same effect.
Photoshop is great in the respect that you can use your own custom brush in addition to it’s default airbrush preset. I made my own custom brush, using a more organic pattern, to achieve much better results. This brush is great on any type of face, or body part as it replicates the random nature of skin, such as pores and other surface textures. The trick when retouching is being careful not to smooth your subject’s skin out to the point where they look flat and plastic. Using a textured brush like this allows you keep the skin looking real while gently painting away imperfections. Also keep in mind that some imperfections, especially in men, are defining features and should be only diminished in strength rather than removed completely.
You can download the file HERE and then load the brush within Photoshop under the brush menu.
Here’s an example of a before and after. Even using the brush subtlety can make a big difference.
