Gadgets: Flash & Accessories

Today I want to recommend a few items for photographers. I know most people never bother getting anything more than a spare battery for their camera, but some of you must have already made their first steps towards a physical photography toolbox.
Most of these are relevant for DSLR users, and a lot of stuff is useful for people getting into the off-camera flash business.

Some of your gear will obviously be expensive: camera bodies, lenses and flashes are never cheap. But some of the peripheral stuff doesn't have to cost so much. A lot of it can cost way less than it does buying it from a retailer.

Remember, these are only recommendations I make based on my experience. You may be disappointed with some of these gadgets while I thought they were awesome.

Macarons

Besides the obvious benefits of going on photo shoots with models and make-up artists and other photographers, like I did a few weeks ago, there is also the advantage of meeting new people. This, like the many facebook groups for local photographers, opens up new opportunities to photograph things.

In this case I went to a friend I met at the above-mentioned photo shoot, to photograph a workshop on making `macarons': a kind of French dessert which is both tasty and colorful (two things I especially look out for when invited to photograph food...).

This workshop has a very casual atmosphere, and the food preparation is half-way between baking and playing... in a word: fun!

Look Back: Prague

 Last October I went with my family to Prague. This was good for several reasons. First of all travelling with parents is very inexpensive.
Also, Prague has some awesome architecture and interesting photographs appear all the time.
Perhaps most importantly: there's a lot of good beer and it is cheap.
Parents being the ones paying notwithstanding.

Lets say it costs less than coca cola (or water) so it makes absolutely no sense not to drink beer at every occasion.

I personally like 'Staropramen' but 'Kozel' and 'Pilsner Urquell' are also great.

But I digress. Some photos after the break.

Exposure part III: Getting Creative

In the final part of the series I want to show a few examples of when we want to intentionally over/under expose.

As this is the 'most advanced' part of this tutorial I will not get too much into technical stuff. I will assume you all know how to change the exposure and how to make sure you have enough light for whatever you are planning.

The key here, is planning. Although it is easy to just look at the screen and see what came out (or even use a bracket set - as explained below), when you start to know what you are looking for in an image is when these over/under settings really become part of the creative process.

Monthly Model

 Welcome to the first edition of "Opticks Magazine". This month featuring the aspiring model Keren, who is also my art director, girl friend, and occasional voice activated light stand.

After doing some experiments with my new white background and flashes I decided to upload a selection of the images from the day. I wanted to add a little interest to all that white space so here is the result. Also, I had just started working with Adobe Illustrator so forgive me if it is a little jumbled. I wanted to try everything.

Beyond these opening remarks I have surprisingly little to add. There is enough chit chat in the images themselves, and that too, is not to be taken too seriously...

Also, a link to additional photos is added at the end.

BTS: Photo Shoot

In the third and last post about the photoshoot I went to a few weeks ago, I wanted to show a little bit of the "behind the scenes" of the event.

I always liked taking pictures of people taking pictures. Not surprising, when you have eight photographers and about the same amount of models, that even without trying too hard you get a lot of pictures of the photographers at work...

I tried to show both the look and feel of the day, and some of the process of the post production, giving a few images as they came out of camera.

Autumn Colors

Continuing with last week's photo shoot, I have another set of pictures, this time in the theme of Autumn colors (this was the original idea of the shoot though it kinda got lost on the way).

I had managed to get some alone time with today's model, Efrat, and posing on this tree I got some interesting shots.

Once more, the closed walls around this olive tree made control over the light really simple.

A few additional shots were made just before sunset when the light was softer and easier to balance with a small flash.

Model: Efrat Malachi

Makeup:  Eti Hazan