Michael Bromley Photography 615-671-9003
The PPBF Weekly Challenge: Two Light Sources
Aug 2nd
As an ongoing project of mine I try to participate in a weekly photography challenge with the Professional Photographers Business Forum. This week’s challenge is to use two or more light sources to create a portrait. In the photo above I actually have three lights to illuminate one of my favorite models Jamie. So here is how I accomplished this photo, the background is actually a large softbox creating a perfect white backdrop, next is a light with umbrella to the left of the camera acting as a main light , finally for fill light I used a ringlight to make the shadows on her face a bit softer.
Thanks so much for reading,
MB
Funnel Cakes and the Zipper
Jul 27th
I love going to the county fairs and carnivals because there is so many subjects to photograph. Add in a tripod and doing some exposure bracketing and boy do you have a cool combo for an image. This image was actually one frame converted into an psuedo-HDR but using the data already in a Raw file. I love how the light is spinning in the photo you can really feel what was going on here. The lady in the left side of the photo seems to be awful bored with her job though! In the background a ride called the zipper which I know many folks are fond of, myself I rather watch everyone have the fun on that ride then join in too much spinning for my likes! Although my camera sure did like it!
Thanks for reading,
MB
Hibiscus In The Wind
Jul 24th
Today’s post is a photo I did awhile back in our front yard, this hibiscus was just asking to be photographed and I obliged. The day I shot this photo it was pretty windy and took quite a few tries to the photo I wanted. Using a shallow depth of field I was able to get the stamen in focus and the pedals to fall off into soft focus. I wanted to pull out the color of this flower so there are some color edits, as well as some sharpening to give that razor edge focus. I really like how the stamen leads your eye into the middle of the flower.
Thanks so much for reading today,
MB
Breaking Rules With Help From My Friends
Jul 23rd
Today’s Post is all about breaking some rules. I tend to stay within the normal bounds of photography, but as I was working on a product shot today I stumbled across something. I was trying to find the right angle for the shot to make me happy and BOOM! there it was lens flare in my camera. This is something quite normal when taking images outdoors dealing with sunlight but I rarely get lens flare in a studio setting. At first it was on the left side of my frame because of the background light which was pretty cool. I got a shot that made me content, not as happy as I like but it was cool. My friend Ben Braden who I often shoot with said to me ” Hey man you’ve got a good shot, but why not try to make it better? What will it hurt?”
After thinking about it a few minutes my decision was made, it had to be what I had pictured in my head. So I brought two more lights out, one for the background to recreate the lens flare that I had on the left side. Another to add some more fill light to the product itself, as I doubled the gelled lights I had to increase the amount of normal light to balance the scene out.
I know what your thinking, ”What’s the big deal? It’s just lens flare Mike” In order to get the flare to be in the right place in the lens, the lights have to be at the perfect angle for this to work. A half inch one way or the other and the effect is gone. The other neat thing is that on the label of the product itself the same bokeh/flare effect is part of the packaging, which you can see below.
Today was a great day and I had a lot of support from my friends who deserve to be recognized, if you have a minute to view some of their work please take a moment because they are fantastic photographers!
Ben Braden - a great photographer with many talents from fashion, commercial, and landscape this guy does it all. Just a great understanding of light in general!
and
Laci Wilson – a fabulous photographer who has an amazing eye for emotion, from portraits, fashion, weddings, and babies this girl does it all. Her images will bring a smile to your face I promise!
Thanks for reading today!
MB
The images posted today were created as a student project.
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