Posted by Bill Wadman on September 24, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Posted by Bill Wadman on September 16, 2010 · Leave a Comment
My lovely friend Amy has a terrific web series called Hot Mess which is about four young women in NYC who are, as you would expect, each a hot mess. Season two has just started and I was tasked with taking their promotional images. Enjoy!
Posted by Bill Wadman on September 14, 2010 · Leave a Comment
I’m a bit of a strange person. Sometimes get this urge to “DO SOMETHING!” that is very difficult to ignore. And being a portrait photographer, my work requires at least one other person. And since I currently live alone, that only leaves one person to shoot. Self portrait time.
Taking self-portraits without a mirror and with a grownup camera is actually somewhat difficult to do if only for focus. Unless you use a ton of light and stop the lens way down to get some
depth of field you’re going to have a really hard time getting it nice and sharp.
Plus last night I wanted to do something a little more experimental. Looking around the apartment I noticed my trusty empty fish tank I use for water experiments and whatnot. Let me say straight off that I’m both claustrophobic AND hate opening my eyes under water, so please understand that this was a bit of an overcoming of fear kind of thing as well.
I setup the tank with a couple of soft boxes on either side, the camera with a 85mm stopped down to f/16 on a tripod. Had Canon utility software doing timed shots about 5 seconds apart. Then I put two chairs just out of view on either side of the tank, straddled the whole thing with my knees on the chairs, waited for the right time and DUNK! Took three or four tries to get it. One of those things that might be a lot easier with an assistant around.
Here’s a production still for ya:
Posted by Bill Wadman on September 1, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Posted by Bill Wadman on August 27, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Posted by Bill Wadman on August 16, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Posted by Bill Wadman on August 10, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Posted by Bill Wadman on August 9, 2010 · Leave a Comment
A lot has been written about the ‘right’ focal length lenses to use when taking portraits. Mainly, most such writers claim that a longer lens is a so-called portrait lens. I have written a number of times that I generally disagree. Any lens can be a portrait lens. In fact, I almost always use a wide-angle lens in my work. The longest I own is the Canon 85mm/1.2L which I find myself moving against (though lately I’ve been forcing myself to use it more)
Now the above pictures are of my lovely friend Mary who is both beautiful and kind enough to sit for me whenever I ask. On the left is a wide-angle shot of her (28mm) and on the right a longer shot (85mm). The thing is, what makes these two images look so different is not entirely the lens, but rather the distance I was from her. In the first I was about 8 inches away, and the second about 4ft. I moved distances to keep a similar
field of view between the two shots. As I’ve
written about before, if I had taken both pictures from the same distance and cropped the wide shot to match the long one they’d look identical (of course with much less resolution in the cropped shot)
When all is said and done, the shot on the right is arguably a better portrait. But there’s something also intersting about the one on the left. Much more in-your-face in a way that really has some impact. Food for thought.
Posted by Bill Wadman on August 3, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Posted by Bill Wadman on July 29, 2010 · Leave a Comment
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