In a real studio, you’ll never face the problem of insufficient space, but you can often find yourself in pseudo-studios, which are too small or too low. Moreover, a photo shoot is sometimes taken with the use of a studio backdrop positioned in a flat (that’s my case). I’ve encountered the latter problem, i.e. insufficient height, but the methods of coping with it are similar to those of dealing with too small surfaces. Read more
14
Apr
2016
One light setup
To me, lighting is a fundamental factor in photography and I guess that many of you share this opinion. People use one light at the very beginning, when they don’t have more equipment, but a photo taken using one light doesn’t have to be worse than a photo taken with two or three lights. As usual, it all depends on the result you want to achieve – and there are situations where one light is absolutely sufficient and more lights would simply spoil the effect. Another example is outdoor photo shoots, where lights only supplement available light: you can achieve a lot even with one light because you may use available light to fill the shadows or illuminate the background as well as direct it with reflectors. Studio photography has more limitations, but one light still doesn’t mean a poor shot.
23
Mar
2016
Minty and the colored contact lenses
How was it possible that I photographed the first Thai girl as late as 2.5 years after moving to Bangkok? I have no idea. One thing is certain, though (I’ve already mentioned it several times): there are no Asian models in Asia – or, to be more precise, they are there, but they constitute just a fraction of the entire industry. Most models in Thailand are Brazilians; you can also meet many Russians, Ukrainians and other girls with Slavic looks.
23
Feb
2016
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider episode 1 – how not to take photos
In 2010 I was busy preparing a photo report (yes, a photo report – one has to start somehow…) at an automotive industry trade fair. At one stall they mistook me for a professional photographer famous in the motorcycling circles, who belonged to the same editorial staff as I did. After a while, the stall’s owner pointed at me and told the hostesses, “This is the best photographer working here” and I didn’t care too much about getting things straight. The girls immediately gathered round me to pose for photos and one of them definitely was the most interesting hostess in the whole trade fair hall. I took the photos; a week later, that hostess – Klaudia Kandziora (currently Klaudia Danch, known as Kala) – found me on a social network website. We had a chat and I decided that it was high time I did a full-blown photo shoot, or at least something that would resemble it a bit. That was a breakthrough… my first photo shoot. I’ve only described it because I’m going to refer to it in some of my oncoming posts. Read more
16
Feb
2016
A few words about beauty shots: A photo shoot with Alexandra Lech
The photo shoot with Alexandra was rather spontaneous, like most photo shoots I take. While browsing through MaxModels.pl, a portal gathering models, photographers and all other people from the industry in Poland, I found her profile and immediately thought, “This is it”. I rarely find someone so interesting – and from my vicinity, too. The girl was short, but she was only 14, so she still had time to grow. I was planning to take beauty shots, so the height wasnít important; what counted was the face and the silhouette (don’t tell me that the silhouette doesn’t matter in beauty shots: one may only ignore it if just the face and no more than a small fragment of the neck are going to be visible in the photo). Read more
