Lighting How To

Have you ever been on location with a beautiful model and great scenery, only to be foiled by a drab, overcast sky? In this two–minute video, celebrity/sports photographer David Bergman explains how to combine creative color-balance control with off–camera flash to get some stunning results on a gray day in Belize.

Reuben Wu is an artist with the fascinating vision of creating otherworldly landscape photographs that evoke both science fiction and 19th century Romantic paintings. He does this by selectively light-painting his scenes with a powerful done-mounted light.

The fun video below from The Slanted Lens -- with support from Tamron, Dynalite, and Roscoe—features host Jay P. Morgan and actress Jodie Sweetin of Full House fame, as they set up for a crazy photo shoot.

Hi everybody! I’m very excited to be launching a new Q&A column here in Shutterbug—a magazine I’ve been reading, and been a fan of, for so many years—so it’s truly an honor to be here with you. I invite you to send in your questions to editorial@shutterbug.com, and I’ll do my best to answer them in Ask a Pro. OK, let’s jump right to it.

Low light photography presents many challenges, but like any challenging situation it also opens up opportunities to create unique images. Think outside the box and you will be surprised at the kind of images you can produce. The techniques I describe below will get you started. Try each one and see why there is no limit to what you can create with some imagination and effort, and have some fun in the bargain.

When I realized that this column would be in the magazine’s lighting focus issue, I looked at the data for the photos I’d taken earlier this year during a nearly month-long combination of safari workshop, assignment, and stock shoot in Africa. What I found surprised me: I’d used flash on about one-third of the 13,000 photos I’d made on that trip. I had no idea I’d used my Speedlights as often as I had.

You enter a room bustling with activity. You see models posing in front of photographers on two different sets, other models patiently sitting getting their makeup and hair done, lights and modifiers everywhere, while one petite woman seems to be in charge of this organized chaos. Welcome to a workshop with one of the premier glamour and fashion shooters of our day, Lou Freeman.