1. “One of the greatest things you can do is sit for a portrait yourself,” he asserts. When you pose for another photographer, you can see what he/she does wrong, and learn from those mistakes. “Always go back to being in the subject’s shoes.”

2. How does he relax his subjects? “Let people express themselves. It will put them at ease,” he replies. He doesn’t often have a lot of time to work with his subjects, but he knows how to make them feel relaxed. He says it’s difficult to explain exactly what to say to your subjects, but it’s important to know what he/she wants. In the years that he’s been photographing people, he says, he developed sensitivity in approaching them. “It’s always about the person,” he says.

3. “I don’t ask people to smile for a portrait sitting unless it’s really necessary,” says Greenfield-Sanders. He says this expression can appear superficial. Also, as he points out, when you look at a person grinning in a portrait, the teeth are usually the brightest part of the picture. In his portraits, he would prefer that the viewer’s eye be drawn to the subject’s eyes, not the mouth. He feels that a subject will assume a natural pose in front of the lens if you allow the person to be him/herself and is not carefully posed. What about the smiling face of Hillary Clinton in profile? “It’s an unusual portrait for me,” he notes.

probably had learned how challenging it could be. To display on web pages and computer screens, you have to contend with awkward camera angles. Some might have to work with adequate ceiling height and create lighting that is natural. Well, easier said than done! I found a interesting lesson provided by PhotoFlex on Olympus Digital School.

Basically it’s got almost everything you need to start a studio shooting. They described a detailed setup and showed us some great examples including

• The Studio Space
• Shooting Surfaces
• Point-and-Shoot Results
• Building the Set
• A Note On Power Settings
• The Predominant Light
• The Working Distance with Hard Light
• Accentuating with Fill
• Readjustments to Styling
• Reducing Overall Contrast
• Enhancements in Photoshop
• Comparisons
• Have Gear, Will Travel

So to get started with this, we will need a boom(and a boom stand, of course), a softbox(Photoflex LiteDome here), few flash lights and a reflector.

I do not mean to waste your time on introductions. But just allow me to mention the last beautiful trick here. A white foam core! In the page we linked, you will see on Figure 21 and 22 for an example for the bounce light to fill the contrast. This is great.  I like the fulfillment with basic elements.

So, click the link and enjoy the class!

http://www.olympusdigitalschool.com/Photo_Lessons/Shooting_Apparel_In_The_Studio/index.html

Pogue conducted two tests. The first one was shot by same camera, same photographer, same shot. The 8 megapixel photo was resized from 13 megapixel vis Adobe Photoshop and so was the 5 megapixel one(the method was argued by some audience and they blamed it for the advanced technology from Photoshop resizing).

One out of hundreds New Yorkers who is acclaimed photography professor made the complete right guess. Others just can’t tell the differences. The second test was developed by three different shots.

Using a professional camera (the 16.7-megapixel Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II) in his studio, he would take three photos of the same subject, zooming out each time. Then, by cropping out the background until the subject filled the same amount of the frame in each shot, he would wind up with nearly identical photos at three different resolutions: 7 megapixels, 10 and 16.7.

The result? Only three out of 50 test subjects could say it right. So does megapixel matter?

First of all, having some extra megapixels can be extremely useful in one important situation: cropping. You can crop out unwanted background and still have enough pixels left for a decent print. (Blog comment No. 376, for example, imagines “a child’s face that looked priceless at the time the shot was taken — and it occupied 5 percent of the photo. For this rare occasion, it is worth being safe rather than sorry.”)

For me, the cropping is seriously important to me. I like the possibility out there. But I am also trying hard to make composition right at the first place.

What’s your personal experience about large size printing? Do not hesitate to share!

Source:

http://science.discovery.com/videos/its-all-geek-to-me-megapixel-myth.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/08/technology/08pogue.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/21pogues-posts-2/

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/

Here’s the first page came out after I simply input “skype phone” in my Chrome. I did this simply because it would be great if I can pull them together. Moreover, if I can put all my contacts together with ease, this is heaven!

See the red circle right there? Uncle Google listed all the brands manufacturing Skype phones for you. What a genius!?

Now I am ready to shop around. Thanks, Google!

The high-performance FL-50R boasts multiple adjustment modes including TTL Auto and manual, and high-speed synchronization.

reference: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3304

. Yes! You read it right. “Few”. Actually we just can’t wait to get it before the past memorial day long weekend. We thought the 10day lead time is far than enough for us to have it delivered while the first place we placed order online. The geek in Apple Store even told us that the fastest way to get any iPad is going online.

The truth is, NO! Like hell, NO! The estimated delivery date was delayed and delayed again. From 7 days to 10 days, then to early June. We’re so frustrated until one of our friends got his 64 gig(yes! You heard it right! 64 gig with 3G connection) iPad from the store! He was in the waiting list which I believed to be no difference or even later then online orders. Anyway, the point is, we put ourself in the waiting list for 6 different models and different Apple Stores. So we are fortune enough to have iPad with us right before Memorial Day weekend and also there are three extra iPads for our friends(we were thinking to make some profit from it but failed).

There’s a native Word Press app for iPad. This is way much better than those apps for iPhone only. You don’t have to tap the 2x button to see the ugly pixels. After some basic setting(like to enable the remote edit function), you are free to blog now!

The default posting status is Local Draft which means you are not doing cloud blogging. A scheduled publish time and date will be required to setup. Furthermore, it’s not that easy to attach photos to your article. Not to mention embed or insert URL images to it.

You can save your post at any moment you wish. Local drafts should be kept in your machine. I lost two paragraphs for no reason. I guess that’s because the plug in syncing interrupted my savings. Press save button from time to time would be the lifesaver.

After all of this, you can schedule a publish time or just preview it. It would be perfect if we could have a WYSIWYG editor. Maybe web version is the alternate for now. Inserting and removing photos from this app is such a pain.

What’s your iPad blogging experiences? Come tip us!

Updated: I didn’t get a chance to publish my iPad article via ipad app directly. There’s error while publishing. I will rate this word press app just three stars.

Ideally you’ll have at least three lights, four if you’ve got the equipment. You’ll also need a seamless white backdrop of some kind. Many professionals mount a 9 ft wide roll of paper high on stands, then roll it down across the background and onto the floor of the shot. If you’re on a budget or in a hurry you can try using a sheet (watch for wrinkles) or an empty wall.

Position your subject in the center of the backdrop and make sure to keep the shot’s frame within the bounds of the paper so no gaps are showing. Next setup a key light and a fill light. The key light is off to one side and is your main source of light on the subject. Make sure the lighting on the subject is fairly flat. As strange as that sounds, remember that you’re not going for contrast here but brightness throughout.

Having your key light to one side will likely produce harsh shadows on the opposite side of the subject. Here you setup a less bright fill light to smooth out some of those areas. Shooting with only these two lights will produce a gray, shadow-filled background. Since we’re going for solid white, you need to eliminate these shadows by using one or two lights angled and pointed at your backdrop.

The key here is experimentation. Don’t worry if you end up with a lot of bad shots at first, it can literally take hours to figure out a decent light setup if you’re new to studio flash photography.

One thing to watch out for is the light bouncing off your backdrop, which can cause strange halos around your subject. At the same time, you want to make sure you’re blowing out the backdrop enough to get a fairly solid white.

To sum up, high key photography seeks to eliminate harsh shadows and create a bright environment. It is generally used to convey an upbeat, funny or beautiful subject but can be manipulated to communicate a number of moods and concepts.

If you want to shoot high key indoors, it’s best to have some studio lighting available, preferably 3-4 flashes: two on your subject, two on the backdrop. Also, make sure your camera’s settings are optimized to let in lots of light. Make sure there’s enough to brighten the scene considerably without blowing out the subject.

Credit: Josh Johnson; DEBORAHWOLFE

The setup follows the beautiful girls.

Two SB25s and a reflector.

One directly behind subject with a shoot through umbrella angled slightly up and a few inches behind subject. Second was in a shoot through umbrella angled down directly in front of (about 8 inches) and above subject.

One reflector was held by subject at chest level.

Since its introduction, Sekonic’s L-358 Flash Master has become the best-selling digital flash meter in its class. Weather-sealed against the nastiest of working conditions, the L-358 delivers dead-nuts accurate flash and ambient light reading in both incident and reflected modes.

The head of the L-358 swivels 270-degrees allowing you to “walk the set” while maintaining constant visual contact with the LCD display. An indigo, backlit LCD screen with large text and icons allows for easy referencing under all lighting conditions.

Sekonic L358 from Mark Wallace on Vimeo.

Visit here for detailed review. Thanks Eddie. =)