Photo Notes A place to talk about making images.

October 10, 2015

Tool Kit

Of course I’m thinking about the workshop next weekend. There are only two spaces left, so you should SIGN UP NOW!

Samantha will be one of the models for Sunday October 18th.

Samantha will be one of the models for Sunday October 18th.

One of the things I want to examine at the workshop is the lighting tool kit for a photographer. The equipment manufacturers want us to buy everything; they’re not exactly on our side. Many of the available tools are of little use, or totally redundant. So I hope that this workshop will actually help you to save money by experimenting with the tools. I’ve seen a lot of people who work with hammers: carpenters, roofers and neurologists. The all use different kinds of hammers; purpose built for their applications. When we choose our tools we need to exercise the same care a carpenter does when he buys a hammer.

harley

The main tools we use as photographers are designed to work for a large variety of applications. So my Nikon D800 is a terrific camera to fit onto a microscope or use for architectural photography or even an auto race. While the camera will work well in all those applications, I’ll need to use different lenses for each situation. This is one of the great strengths of camera design: a good camera can be adapted to different situations. Can you imagine buying a whole new camera everything you needed a lens or even a filter? Strobe lights are the same way: a basic strobe can be used for a lot of applications, if you have the light modifiers for the job. This is one of the good aspects of strobe lights over movie lights, which are purpose built. Over the years I’ve worked with many light modifiers for strobes, everything from large soft boxes to fiber optics. These modifiers are designed to make the lights useful in all kinds of applications. Some of modifiers have been good, some bad; some work in a lot of situations and some are only good for one kind of job. I hope one of the things you’ll receive from the workshop is a better way to choose your tools.

The first step in adding a tool to your kit is identifying the reason you need or want that tool. So I may choose a new light because I didn’t have the lights I felt I could use at my last job, but I may also choose a tool because it inspires me. I think this second reason is really important. I often get tools because they make me want to work, or because they open up new ideas for shots. I also get tools because they replace or upgrade or back up the tools that I have. Of course one problem is that I now have too many tools to take on location.

When i shoot a motorcycle i need to use large light modifiers to build good light.

When I shoot a motorcycle I need to use large light modifiers to build good light.

I’ve got a large studio so I have some tools that are only useful in a full time studio. One of the best is my Broncolor Hazylight. I picked up the frame in a studio sale, and adapted a Norman head to fit the frame. Then I put the whole thing on a camera stand, so it’s easy to position in my studio. Most photographers don’t have a space for a light modifier this big. If you’re going to use a smaller studio you might want to use light panels. The panels are cheap to make and incredibly adaptable.

Here's a shot that mixes hard light, soft light and continuous light effectively.

Here’s a shot that mixes hard light, soft light and continuous light effectively. Effective catch lights as well.

One of the important aspects of a portrait is the catch light in the eyes. The catch light, which is really just a small reflection of you’re the light, can change the whole quality of a portrait. If you don’t see a catch light, or if you see an umbrella, or just a tiny pin prick of light, it can damage an image. There are all kinds of light sources for portraits shooting that address this problem. I’ve used quite a few: portrait dish, soft box, octabox, umbrella and so on. One of the things that makes better catch lights is a large circular light source, which will make a round catch light in the subject’s eyes. For this reason I’ve got a cover with a circular cut out for my Hazylight. I would build a similar cover for a soft box, if I were using one. I also use a light panel and a snoot to make a circular light source. I can use the snoot to put a circle of light onto the panel. I can use these tools to make other shapes and control the direction of the light. This gives me a round catch light, or I can change the angle of the snoot and get many different shapes on the light panel. So both the snoot and the light panels are at the top of my list for light modifiers. I also use the snoot as a hard light source in my shots. I’ve found that the snoot is an incredibly fun tool to have in my lighting kit.

Just a guy using thee right tool for the job!

Just a guy using thee right tool for the job!

I also like using a set of barn doors with my light for illuminating the light panels. The barn doors can even crate a strip with the light panel. I also like the barn doors for shooting architecture. I can control a bounce off a ceiling or other surface, to keep the light out of my image. Of course the barn doors can help to place a highlight in a subject, say a hair light or a rim light. Both the snoot and the barn doors are small light sources, so the position of the light is important, but if you use the snoot or the barn doors with a modifier like the light panel you can make a large light source.

It really doesn’t matter whether you make light with a mono-light or a dedicated strobe. What matters is controlling just a few things: the color of the light, the power of the light, the size and shape of the light source and the position of the light. The color and power of the light really only matter relative to other light sources in your shot. So if you were using just one light you could change the ISO or the aperture to control the amount of light, but if you have two lights they have to be balanced. Not necessarily the same power, but a balance that suits your vision for the shot. Similarly you might want all the lights in a shot to have the same color balance, but you might also want one light to be warmer. A warmer light might give the effect of sunlight coming into your shot. You can control the color of one light in your camera, but the camera won’t make one light warm and another cool. Controlling power and color are tools that you use to build your shot. The size of the light source, relative to your subject, affects the quality of the light: hard or soft. The larger your light source is the less that the position of the light matters; consider how the light comes from the whole sky on an overcast day, no shadows and no direction.

F2359911

The image should start in your mind. If you have an idea of how to position a model, or how to light a face, or a room, or a product, then you can start to build that shot. If you start with the same light each time, or only use existing light, then you have much less control over your shot. So it’s important to understand how each tool works, how you can use the tools together, to build the images you want to make. One of my heroes is Felix the Cat, because whenever he gets in a fix, he reaches into his bag of tricks. As photographers we need a big bag of tricks. Here are a couple of things I have in my bag of tricks whenever I go on location: umbrellas (white, silver, gold all with black covers) gaffers tape, magic arm and super clamp, small tripod, large tripod, lighting filters (Rosco gels) light stands, maybe even a reflector or two. Of course I’ve also got some interesting strobes on location, mine work with both ac and dc power. The heads are small enough to fit almost anywhere. I’ve been doing this for more than forty years, which means a couple of things: I’ve got multiple kits for different location work. I can grab just one box if I’m shooting an executive portrait, but I’ll add a couple of boxes to this, if I’m making room shots. The time I’ve spent shooting also means that the way I use the tools, and the tricks I use, have evolved over the years. Part of being a creative photographer is learning to see what could be, not just what is. I want to help you to build the images that could be.

This is shot made with just a snoot.

This is shot made with just a snoot.

Of course I want to see you at the lighting workshop on October 17 & 18. You can sign up here. You can also see another post about the workshop here. There are only two spaces left for the shoot on Sunday. You can also sign up for just Saturday, which will be demonstrations and explanations. Of course if you just can’t make it to the workshop, you can still get my books.

December 16, 2011

New Book: Photographing Architecture!

Filed under: Architectural Lighting,Lighting Technique,My Books! — John Siskin @ 6:44 pm

I just got the advance copies of my second book: Photographing Architecture. It appears that Amazon will actually be able to ship the book before Christmas, so order now. Pretty darned exciting!! All of the pictures in the blog this week are from Photographing Architecture. Of course you can also get my first book Understanding and Controlling Strobe Lighting.
Also as sort of a continuing gift you can download copies of most of my articles
and some do it yourself projects. I wrote most of what follows for my Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio class at BetterPhoto.com. I teach two other classes at BetterPhoto: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting and Getting Started in Commercial Photography. I hope you’ll check them out. I have been told that prices are going up next year at BetterPhoto, so you might want to sign up soon. I have opinions about the value of proprietary strobes versus various kinds of manual strobes. They are based on my experience. Reasonable people can hold other opinions. I can only hope that these opinions are based on actual experience. Lighting is more of a language than an art. At it’s most basic level manipulating light can be discussed with numbers. We might call this a machine language. I began to learn this language decades ago. It was relatively difficult to learn because it was not described in a logical manner. I try to describe the language in a relatively coherent manner in my class An Introduction to Photographic Lighting. I think that the manufacturers of cameras would rather you didn’t learn this language. First they think you don’t want to learn and second it would reduce their profits. You can purchase a manual strobe that does what the Canon or Nikon proprietary strobe does for less than half the cost of the proprietary unit. While clearly the extra electronics do add to the cost of the thing, I wouldn’t guess that the extra cost would be very high. In addition these proprietary systems keep you from buying alternative products. I should say that dedicated strobes are great for flash fill and events: areas where auto exposure is particularly useful. When you shoot a wedding your goal is good and fast; when you shoot almost anything else your goal should be great photos. Also when proprietary strobes are used with larger light modifiers they could make a good quality of light. Since one of the best features of these lights is portability people often won’t carry large light modifiers. You can use manual lights with dSLR camera, from Nikon Canon and other companies. When you want to set up a shot with either dedicated strobes or manual strobes you need to be able to see what you’re doing. The idea that you can use the same settings on your lights and positions for the lights all the time, will greatly limit the kind of images you can make. This means that you need to pay attention when you design the light for a shot. It also means that, whenever humanly possible, you will want to do your set-ups tethered to a laptop computer or a tablet. Remember we want to take great photos, and so we need to see what we are doing. I shot a lot of film, and people often ask how I did that with just a meter. The answer is I didn’t. I used Polaroid for every shot I made: thousands of dollars worth of Polaroid in a year. I usually disconnect the camera from the laptop after I have perfected the set-up, it makes it easier and quicker to shoot. When you’re looking at an image, on your laptop, that you made with dedicated strobes you’ll want to examine the how much light you get from each light, the direction of each light, the quality of the light and the way the strobe light interacts with the ambient light. If you need to change the power of one or more of the off camera lights you’ll be able to do that from the camera. You can also adjust the balance between strobe and ambient light. The other things will probably require you to walk to the strobe units. If you need to change the power of a manual strobe you’ll probably need to walk to the strobe and adjust the power or the position. The biggest problem with automation is that people assume that the right amount of light is also the right light. Quantity of light is easy, but the quality of light: how hard or soft and color, require some practice to get right. One more thing, I use a lot of lights. I regularly go out on a shoot with eight lights. Not only do the manual lights I use cost less they use cheaper slaves. It isn’t that I didn’t spend as much on lights as other people, it is that I got more lights. I’m happy with the tools I have. I hope everyone has a great season of celebration! And a wonderful picturesque New Year for us all! Thanks, John
BetterPhoto.com, The better way to learn photography

October 31, 2010

Involuntary Time Travel

Filed under: My Books!,Photography Communication — John Siskin @ 10:00 pm

I’ve been doing a lot of editing lately, as a result of the book projects I’ve been working on. Lately I’ve needed to look in the old files. I have film files going back to the early 1970ies at least. I have black and white negatives, color negatives and transparencies. I have 35mm, 120, 4X5, 8X10 and Minox, and don’t forget the stereo slides. I have multiple filing cabinets. By now I must have thousands of CDs and DVDs as well as floppies and what not. I can find things, but not everything is in the first place I look. The really heartbreaking this is when you find something that has been damaged over the years. I didn’t always use archival materials to store my originals.

The biggest problem is what I call Involuntary Time Travel. When you find an image that takes you back to college, or even to high school. Or you do nothing but wonder about what that person is doing now, a quarter century later. When I start looking through the files I visit my past. A good image can evoke powerful feelings. Photography is a really important way to diarize a life; to enable us to revisit the past. But it is much more than that, because we can create images that allow us to communicate with others. My goal is to help people improve their communication skills. To help others speak more clearly.To that end I just finished two more books! My first book is about lighting photographs: Understanding and Controlling Strobe Lighting: A Guide for Digital Photographers. It’s on sale now. The link is to Amazon. I hope you’ll pick up a copy. You can see some of the book at Amazon, this link is to the chapter on Portraiture. I just finished a second book for the same publisher on lighting interiors, this book will be available in about a year.
The book that really sent me time traveling is a collection of personal images called B Four. The images are from the beach, buildings, being and beauty. There was a lot of editing involved. I really hope you’ll take time to look at the book, and of course it would mean a lot if you bought a copy. I did the book with blurb so that I could make the decisions about content. I’ve included a few of the images from B Four with this blog.

Please consider taking one of my classes, or even recommending them. I have three classes at BetterPhoto:
An Introduction to Photographic Lighting
Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio
Getting Started in Commercial Photography

BetterPhoto.com, The better way to learn photography

October 24, 2010

Book to Book to Book?

Filed under: Looking at Photographs,My Books! — John Siskin @ 8:20 pm

The first book, Understanding and Controlling Strobe Lighting: A Guide for Digital Photographers, is on sale now, but it may only be at Amazon. Hopefully it will be in a book store near you soon. I’ve heard good things from a few people who have already received it. It is really fabulous to look myself up at Amazon.

The second book is FINISHED!!! Lighting spaces, a photographers guide to lighting architecture, commercial and other big spaces with flash and ambient (light), the title is still kind of wordy. I think we’ll shorten it soon. I shipped the files off to the publisher Amherst. Look for this book in the fall of next year, 2011. My last two blog entries were from this book, I hope you’ll check them out.

And NOW, I felt the need to share some pictures that are beautiful. Images not made for clients and not made for profit. I’ve been gathering images, while making the second book. So in a few days you’ll be able to get a book of my favorites. I’m calling it B-Four, because it is pictures of beaches, beings, beauty and buildings. There will probably be two versions of this from Blurb. I really hope you’ll consider purchasing a copy. It is nice to share some of pictures that I find compelling. I expect that the book will be ready to order in about a week. I’ve chosen the images, but I have to finish gathering files. I trust the book will be worth your attention. Here are a few images:

Beach

Beauty

Buildings

Beings

Please consider taking one of my classes, or even recommending them. I have three classes at BetterPhoto:
An Introduction to Photographic Lighting
Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio
Getting Started in Commercial Photography

BetterPhoto.com, The better way to learn photography

October 18, 2010

Photographing an Entry

Filed under: Architectural Lighting,My Books! — John Siskin @ 10:59 am

This is another section of my second book. This book will be out in a bout a year. You can get my first book in stores any day, or order it here: Understanding and Controlling Strobe Lighting: A Guide for Digital Photographers.  Thanks for your interest!

This shot really helped to create an important relationship with a client. The house had just been completed and was empty. Most of the other shots I took of this house were just empty rooms, for that matter so is this shot. But the way the angle defines the staircase and the door frame really gives the shot a feeling of drama and completion. I have gone on to do literally thousands of images for this client.

This is the image at the beginning of the shot.

I started with the camera a little too close and just ambient light. All the important aspect of this shot don’t have enough light. You can see that the windows will contribute a little light, and there is light on the entry.

So I started to add light. In this version I have a light outside, but it is too hard. You can see the small hard reflection on the door frame. I tried to use a small shoot through umbrella outside, because of the wind. Umbrellas are bad in the wind. I changed to a larger umbrella outside later in the evolution of the shot and added a sandbag. I also added a light in the hallway on the left of the shot, and a light on the second floor landing.

The lighting is better, but not even enough. Also I don’t like the highlight on the right side of the doorway.

The light on the stairway and the floor isn’t really bright enough. So I added a light inside the doorway on the left side. When I took the shot I though it was this light inside that was reflection onto the doorway. Reflections can be hard to figure out. The tethering program on this camera doesn’t allow you to back up quickly. This means it is really important to do a complete examination of the shot at each stage. I could have saved time if I had realized that the next light wasn’t causing the reflection.

I added a light inside the doorway that helped a lot.

The light on the second floor landing is not lighting the ceiling as evenly as I would like, so I moved the light back. The light in the hallway is a little bright in this shot also. There isn’t as much shape in the entry room because the light is even and the shadow of the banister is a little too intense. One of the problems with making a shot is deciding when it is done. When do you say “Oh this is just what the client needs” and when do you decide to work a little longer? That is an important consideration in every job. In this case I know that I could make the door  frame better. I suppose that there are jobs where you could keep making minor changes forever. In most cases I think it is important to take a few moments to really look at all of the shot. This is one of thee reasons that tethering your camera to a laptop is so important. Without the larger image on the laptop it is really hard to evaluate the image effectively.

Here the light is working pretty well, except for the highlight on the door frame.

In this version the light on the second floor landing is nice and smooth. It is really defining the shapes up there. I like the light in the hallway now. One of the things it does is define the curve at the top of the hallway. This shot is all about curves, so keeping the lines strong is really important. You can see that I am still struggling with the highlight on the door frame. This is the problem that stood out for me in this shot. Often there is a simple answer, but sometimes we all miss it. In this case the answer was to move to a larger softer light for the exterior. I had been using a small shoot through, as I mentioned earlier, but I finally changed to a 45-inch umbrella.
As you can see I also pulled the camera back a bit. For me this was the change than made the shot. I really like the wood and the curve at the top of the shot. It creates a frame around the image. The shapes are good. There is a nice sense of openness and light that certainly wasn’t there at the beginning. And the door frame looks fine! I also added a light at the top left side of the shot, on the second floor. You can see a little bit of the light in the upper left window. I also put in a light in a hallway on the bottom right of the shot. This hallway light really didn’t affect the shot very much, but it did seem to bring a little light to the banister.

Here is the final capture. The light is smooth and the door frame looks great!

This diagram shows where the lights ended up.

This diagram shows where the lights ended up.

The umbrellas, except where noted are 45-inch umbrellas. Except for the shoot through on the second floor all the umbrellas have black backs.
Most of the lights had 45-inch umbrella, but the umbrella inside the doorway was a 60-inch and the one on the top left of the landing was a 30-inch shoot through. Except for the shoot through umbrella all the lights had black backs, so they only lit the shot by reflection.
There was a little left to do in Photoshop. When I opened the image in Adobe RAW, I made the shot about 250ºK warmer with the color temperature slider. I also brighten the exposure by about one third of a stop. There really wasn’t anything else to do. However there were a few things to do in Photoshop. First I used the cropping tool with the perspective box clicked on. I put the top corners of the cropping box closer together. This made the door frame stand up a little straighter. While I didn’t feel it needed to be straightened completely, opening it up made the shot work better. I also cropped a little bit of the floor, because the change in perspective made the shot a little too thin. I removed the power outlet and few odds and ends from the second floor ceiling. I didn’t think they brought anything to the shot. I also put some density back into the window on the upper left.

This is the final shot after a color change in Adobe RAW and some minor work in Photoshop.

My first book: Understanding and Controlling Strobe Lighting: A Guide for Digital Photographers will be in stores any day! Or get it from Amazon with the link. I am really pleased with the way the book turned out.

Please consider taking one of my classes, or even recommending them. I have three classes at BetterPhoto:
An Introduction to Photographic Lighting
Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio
Getting Started in Commercial Photography

BetterPhoto.com, The better way to learn photography

October 6, 2010

Strobes and Layers

Filed under: Architectural Lighting,My Books!,Post-Processing — John Siskin @ 6:13 pm

This blog entry is a chapter from the book I’m working on now. This book will be about lighting interiors. Of course I hope you’ll look for it in about a year. In the mean time my first book will be out any day: Understanding and Controlling Strobe Lighting: A Guide for Digital Photographers

Shots in the bath are always difficult. The room is generally small and there are a huge number of reflecting surfaces. So it is always a special pleasure to be able to shoot in a bath that is really large. You still have reflective surfaces, but you also have more options for dealing with the problems. This was a really fun bath to shoot.

One of the things that made it particularly great was the assistant. I am often lucky enough to often have assistants who are great photographers in their own right. Mike had a different approach for shooting this room. In the end we did it both ways. He was really interested in a version with ambient light and I preferred a shot made with strobes. I always think in terms of how to light a subject, even when I end up using ambient light as the primary light.

In this case a 60-inch umbrella, near the camera, was all the light I needed. Of course this is usually the way I start, and sometimes finish. Although the light was ok, I didn’t like the camera position. Not only was the camera tilted, but the doorway was also cutting into the cabinets.

The first capture with the strobe. 1 mono light at half power with a 60-inch umbrella.

I’m not really happy with the balance between my light and the ambient light. I thought that more ambient light would be more attractive. There are artifacts from my sensor on the lights, which is often the case. But there are no large reflection problems and the color in the shot is pretty good. So change the camera position and use a longer shutter speed, for a better shot. In the next image the shutter speed was half a stop longer.

Here I’ve moved the camera and made the shutter speed a little longer.

When I opened the shot in Adobe RAW I changed the color temperature slider to a warmer setting. I used the recovery slider to brighten the shadows and cabinets a little. As I generally do I raised the Vibrance and Saturation levels slightly, but really I didn’t change much. Here is the shot after these changes:

I warmed up the color in Adobe RAW, and adjusted the recovery slider.

I didn’t have much to do in Photoshop. Cleaned up sensor dirt and the artifacts from the lights first. I also did a little sharpening.

The final shot. 1 strobe with 375 watt-seconds, and a 60 inch umbrella. Shutter at 1/10 and aperture at F9.5, ISO 100.

I really like the way the ambient light and the strobes work together in this shot. The final shot was made at F9.5 and 1/10 of a second, so you can see, because of the long exposure, how much of the ambient light I used. The light was a 750 watt-second mono light set to 1/2 power. The brightness of the open windows on the sides of the shot and the window with the covering in the back creates a nice feel for the light.

I shot quite a few versions of the shot with out any lights on. I wanted to see what I could do with an HDR version of this shot first. I ended up using 4 files for the HDR:


I used all four of these versions to create an HDR of the image.
I used the Equalize Histogram to convert from 32 bit depth to 8 bit depth. When I used HDR with the raw files the corrections to the color disappeared. The result looks like this:

I'm not happy with this version, but I wasn't really shooting for HDR.

I don’t like this version all that much. I could certainly fix the color, but the shot doesn’t have much sparkle. I really don’t like the way the windows work and there is some movement in the chandelier.

However Mike wasn’t thinking about using HDR. He had in mind using layers to manually bring the different versions of the shot together.

This is the bright version of the shot again. Most of the final image comes from this version.

This dark image will give me the detail I need in the windows.

This version will give me the lights in the chandelier. You can see how much overall color the lights created in the ambient light version of the shot.

This version will give me the lights in the chandelier. You can see how much overall color the lights created in the ambient light version of the shot.
The brightest layer will be the main layer of the shot. I used the dark layer to recover the windows and the layer with the chandelier lit to put the lights back into the shot. I also used the recovery slider (in Adobe RAW) on the bright layer to open the dark areas of the cabinets a little. I also used Vibrance and Saturation. I didn’t feel that I needed to change the overall exposure. Oh, as I mentioned above, I had already warmed up the color on the light and dark files. I made the color on the file with the chandelier lights on a little cooler. You can see, in that version, how much the lights change the overall color of the shot.

I started mixing the windows with a large soft eraser and pulled detail back into the window. I worked on the center of the shot and the mirrors on the sides. I used a 500 pixel brush with 12% opacity for the overall work. I also added just a little bit of density to the chandelier so there would be more contrast when I added the lights.

I added a lot more detail to the back window and the mirrors in this shot.

First I did the bulbs on the chandelier. I used a much small brush for the bulbs. I also used more opacity: 20%. Then I switched to a broad soft brush over the whole chandelier, at 5% opacity. The chandelier looks reasonable, but I prefer the version in the shot with the strobes. Of course all of this retouching is a mater of creating results that work for you and for your client. There are no actual rules. I could have pulled up the lights over the mirrors, but I didn’t like the effect of these lights.

Of course I needed to clean up sensor dirt and do some straightening with the crop tool. I also did a little sharpening in this last version.

I like the version made with the strobes better. For one thing the room seems brand new in that shot. I feel that the greater opacity in the back window, of the strobe shot, also makes the room seem more private, which is good for a bath. If I had a subject, such as a person in the shot, the cooler version made with ambient light might have worked better. One more thing, the cabinets look better in the shot I made with strobes.

Please consider taking one of my classes, or even recommending them. I have three classes at BetterPhoto:
An Introduction to Photographic Lighting
Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio
Getting Started in Commercial Photography

BetterPhoto.com, The better way to learn photography

January 22, 2010

The New Book & The Next Book

Filed under: Lighting Technique,My Books! — John Siskin @ 6:15 pm

coverI want to just include an update of my publishing projects. My first book, now titled Understanding and Controlling Strobe Lighting, A Guide for Digital Photographers is due out in the fall. I’ve attached a copy of the cover. Of course I’ll post ordering information as soon as it is available. My publisher Amherst Media has accepted the outline for my second book. This is tentatively titled: Lighting spaces, a photographers guide to lighting architecture, commercial and other big spaces with flash and ambient (light)

As I begin work on this book I have realized that this will provide some wonderful opportunities for teaching. If you are interested in learning architectural lighting please send me an e-mail at john@siskinphoto.com. There will be very few spaces for each location, so give me some idea of your interests. I will include a teaching session with each shoot, so you should have a complete experience.

I will also have an article about architectural photography in Photo Technique Magazine in the May/June issue. I am very excited to be included in the updated version of Photo Techniques Magazine. You can see a couple of my previous articles about architectural lighting at these links www.siskinphoto.com/magazine/zpdf/LocationLighting.pdf and www.siskinphoto.com/magazine/zpdf/Arch_HDR&Strobe.pdf You may have to right click and choose save page as to download these articles. To see more of my articles visit: www.siskinphoto.com/magazinearticles.php

I’ll finish up this week with a few of my favorite architectural photos. All of these images are linked to larger versions on my site. Thanks, for your attention! John Siskin

Union Station #1

Union Station #1

A room at the Huntington Library

A room at the Huntington Library

stair2 soundstudiobigcopy

December 30, 2009

I Finished the Book!

Filed under: Lighting Technique,My Books!,Photography Communication — John Siskin @ 4:05 pm

So I wanted to check on with this blog, just in case anyone is paying any attention. I got a book deal on Dec. 10, and the publisher, Amherst Media, wanted a completed manuscript by Dec.31. I finished on Dec. 28, So you may be able to guess what I have been doing for the last couple of weeks. What I’m going to do this week is attach a bunch of images from the book. They are connected to larger versions at my site, and these images also have the captions from the book. Frankly, it’s going to take a couple of days to get backup to normal speed. Please consider my classes, the links are just below. I hope you’ll take one! The book will be published in the fall. There isn’t a title yet, but there are 31,000 words and a couple of hundred photographs!

Thanks!
John Siskin

My Classes
An Introduction to Photographic Lighting

Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio

Business to Business: Commercial Photography

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