Digital Photography Guide

Let’s look at the sequence of events when combining flash with long exposures. When the flash fires during exposure, the normal sequence looks something like this (note there may be some slight variation among different camera brands or flash modes):

1. Press shutter button.
2. Curtain A opens.
3. Flash fires.
4. Frame is open for some period of time (as determined by your shutter speed).
5. Curtain B closes the frame, ending the exposure.

This is the normal sequence and doesn’t really have a name, except to help differentiate it from our next scenario. With Second Curtain Synch (also sometimes called Slow Synch) the sequence goes like this:

1. Press shutter button.
2. Pre-flash fires so the camera can measure and adjust the intensity.
3. Curtain A opens.
4. Frame is open for some period of time (as determined by your shutter speed).
5. Flash fires.
6. Curtain B closes the frame and ends the exposure.

To understand the significance, imagine you are taking a picture at night in which moving lights will be visible during the exposure. During the exposure, the lights move across your frame and you are not panning.

During the first (normal) exposure, the flash illuminates the subject on one side of your frame. The lights then form streaks across the frame right over top of the subject, resulting in a weird looking image.

In the second scenario, the shutter opens and the lights record their streaks. Then the flash illuminates the subject. The streaks from the lights lead up to the subject, giving the illusion of speed and creating a generally cool effect.

Depending on the speed and direction of movement and the intensity of the lights, it doesn’t always work this way but one of the great things about digital is that you can review your results and try something different if you didn’t get what you were expecting.

It bears noting that you can’t precisely control exactly when the flash fires when using second curtain synch. So it’s possible in our example scenario that the subject could be out of the frame before the flash goes off. Second curtain synch requires some practice, a bit of finesse and sometimes luck to use well.

This post is an excerpt from Jeffrey’s book Photography Basics.

PS: Check out these Amazing Examples of Slow Sync Flash

Have you ever wondered how photographs get that background darkness that makes the person appear to be standing in front of some great abyss? Well, that effect isn’t as difficult as you might think and the trick seems counter intuitive.  

The key is to darken your picture with more light.

Let me explain with an example.

On Sunday, my nieces and nephews came over for our typical family dinner. Since they were already dressed up in their Sunday best they asked if I could take a few shots before we sat down to eat. If you knew these kids you’d know why shooting after eating wasn’t an option. So I had 5 min to figure out how to take decent pictures in a boring living room with bad lighting. As you progress in photography be prepared for these situations. Fortunately I had an idea.

First, I took a dark blanket off the couch and had someone hang it over the door. If you have ever tried shooting in front of a blanket you’d know that the results are often less than pleasing most of the time. Textures and wrinkles can be distracting. I didn’t want light coming from where I was standing so I removed the flash from my camera and handed it to a bystander and told them to aim it like a gun close to the subject.

Ok, now some mildly technical stuff.

Both Nikon and Canon have a wireless flash system that’s semi-standard on their cameras and flash units. I was shooting Nikon so their terminology is slightly different than others. First, I set my flash unit (SB-600) to “remote” mode and noted the channel (1) and group (A) displayed on the back of the flash.

Because remote flash units need to be triggered by another flash, I decided to just use the popup flash that was already on my camera. I went into my camera menu and changed my flash to Commander Mode. In that same menu, I set the camera flash to control any remote strobe set to Channel 1, and any flash in Group A to fire at normal power.

I was only using one remote flash for this shot but the camera can control many units with this same system. The last thing I did was to dial down my pop-up flash as low as it would go. I wanted to use it to communicate with the other strobes, but I didn’t want any of its light to actually make it into the picture. Whew… done.

As difficult as that sounded, it took roughly 30 seconds to do. So now I had a remote flash that could be placed anywhere in the room that was being controlled by the popup flash on my camera. No more boring, always lit from the front shots.

Ok, final technical point to this shot, and that is how to achieve the dramatic shadows with a pure black background.

As you know, for a subject to be properly exposed you manipulate the shutter speed and aperture size until you are letting in just the right amount of light for a proper picture. Well what would happen if you had a subject that was so bright that in order to keep them properly exposed you had to close the shutter before the surroundings had time to burn their way into the photo. (Re-read that last sentence if necessary.) Wala!

By making a subject intensely bright, or much brighter than the surroundings, it will properly expose long before the background, in my case a dark blue blanket, shows up. I put my camera in manual mode and stopped down my aperture to as small as it would allow (f/22) and set my shutter speed as fast as it would go while in commander mode (1/250).

Again, seems counter intuitive, but by having a bright flash so close to the subject, you end up darkening the rest of the photo. The entire photo-shoot took less than 10 min from setup to finish.

Lets recap.

Step 1: Get the flash off your camera to achieve those dramatic lighting and shadow effects.

Step 2: Set the flash to be remotely controlled.

Step 3: Set your camera pop-up flash to “Commander Mode”.

Step 4: Dial in your flash settings with your camera menu. I used normal power (1/1).

Step 5: Dial down your pop-up flash so you don’t get light coming from the pop-up in your photo.

Step 6: Put your camera in Manual mode with the smallest aperture and fastest shutter speed available to avoid over exposing your shots. Adjust from there.

Give it a try and post your results.

Fellow DPS photographer Natalie Norton wrote an article awhile back giving tips on shooting pregnant tummies outdoors. This article covers what you need to know when doing it inside with controlled lighting. I questioned whether an article about maternity photography would be useful to many readers, but in the end, most of the tips shared here can be used for many types of portrait photography, be it mothers-to-be or couch potatoes with beer bellies.

Step 1: Setting up your backgrounds.

When mentally preparing for a photo shoot, it’s good to have an idea of what type of images you want to end up with. For both studio and outdoor sessions, much of the mood in an image comes from the background. Because it’s below freezing in VA right now, having a pregnant woman sit and freeze while I try and position her chin just right isn’t an option, so down to the cozy basement we went. I wanted two dramatically different backgrounds typical for this type of shoot: black and white. A plain white wall usually doesn’t work well. Most painted walls provide too much glare. So, to get a smoothly lit background many studios turn to the high-tech material commonly known as paper.

I had a giant roll of white paper still in its tube that I ordered from B&H for about $40. I used duct tape to hang the paper from the top of the wall down onto the floor where she would be standing, creating what the industry refers to as an seamless background.

As a side, background paper can also be converted into gigantic paper airplanes when you’re finished.

For the black background, I rummaged through our closet and found our trusty fuzzy black blanket and hung that on the opposite wall. The fuzzier the blanket is the better, as it absorbs light without bouncing it back into the camera. Also remember the basic rules of lighting, the brighter you make your subject, the darker the background will appear to be in the image.

2. Lighting

Most of us won’t want to purchase a nice Alien Bees or Pocket Wizards set for a specific photo-shoot so you’ll probably have to make due with less expensive solutions. The good news is that great results can be had on limited budgets.

For my setup I used 3 standard SB Nikon flashes in remote mode and two inexpensive umbrella stands. I started with the typical two-light setup, each at 45 degrees as shown in the diagram below, with the third flash directed behind the subject onto the backdrop to eliminate any silhouettes and shadows.

If you’re putting together a kit, I recommend you pick up a pair of barn-door attachments to better control the light coming from the strobes. You can’t go wrong at only $10 a pop and they allow you to focus the light where you want it. Once you’re set up, the three flash units can be moved about the room to experiment with more artistic and dramatic lighting techniques.

Check your camera to see what capabilities it has on controlling flashes that aren’t connected to it’s hot-shoe.

3. Posing with confidence

Now it’s time to get your subject onto the set. This is the point in which you as a photographer need to exude confidence. As much as they seem unrelated, your ability to interact positively with whomever you’re shooting is as important as having the proper technical skills to take the picture. This is something that can’t be learned from books or trade magazines.

My advice is to act what may seem overly confident, constantly giving positive feed back and reassuring your subject that they are looking great. I’d even go so far as to avoid showing them the pictures on your camera’s display. An “I look fat” comment from your subject can ruin a session and you’ll quickly loose all positive energy and cooperation you need for a fluid photo-shoot. Part of being confident is preparing in advance.

Have sample pictures you’d like to emulate on hand. This relieves the pressure of having to remember all the sitting positions and lighting techniques you want to try. A quick search on Google images can give you more than enough ideas to pull from. Finally, prepare a few props, stools, or wardrobe items you can use to mix things up. For this shoot I had a white tablecloth on hand and large paperclips that converted it to something wearable.

4. Coloring and cropping

No matter how good your images look straight out of the camera, you can always add a little punch in post processing. This usually amounts to picking your favorite raw editor such as Lightroom or Aperture and perhaps a few colorizing filters or effects. Although I have learned to do most everything directly within Photoshop, these days I generally turn to products such as Viveza, ColorFX or Kubota.

These tools allow you to convert the images to black and white, soften skin, bleach or saturate colors, and much more. Be careful in the application of these, as it’s easy to overly alter the image. Lately I’ve even found myself adding in a touch of grain or noise, something I always removed previously. In the end, with all these effects it comes down to personal taste and style. Another feature we are all familiar with that comes with these programs is the crop tool.

Subconsciously I tend to shoot a little wide knowing that it provides more options in postproduction. I can always crop in closer for artistic reasons, but if the pixels weren’t captured I can’t go the other way. Notice the different feel in the two images below that is conveyed with slightly different cropping and coloring. Also, don’t be afraid to try cutting off heads, feet or other body parts to emphasize areas of your image.

If you’d like to see more images from this session they are posted at blog.chaselliott.com.

Good luck with your shooting and leave a comment with your own results or tips below.

Warning: Lets start this tutorial with a warning. This post is about Nude Photography and does cover a topic that some may find offensive. We’ve only included one very tame image and the post is (in my opinion) very tastefully written by a woman (one of our forum members who wishes to remain anonymous) who shares her experience and some lessons learned while photographing a friend.

If you think you’ll be offended by this post we do invite you to skip this post. This is a topic many of our readers are interested in so we feel it is relevant but do understand that it is not everyone’s cup of tea.

9 Nude Photography Tips

Image by Daniel James

Let me start by saying that I never thought I’d do any nude photography - not because I am against it as a form of Art - but partly because it never seriously crossed my mind as something I’d do and partly because I never thought I’d come across anyone who would pose for me.

However recently a long term friend asked me if I’d be interested of taking some nude photos of her for her husband.

At first I thought she was joking but she was quite serious. They’ve been married for 10 years and she wanted some tasteful shots - nothing too risque or explicit - that she could give to celebrate their anniversary. She wanted someone that she could trust and someone who she thought could take a decent shot.

After attempting to convincing her that perhaps I wasn’t a good enough photographer for the job - I eventually agreed. We set up a time for the shoot at my home and I set up a simple make shift home studio. Below are some of the lessons that I learned from the experience.

1. Know what you’re looking for before you start shooting - what ended up happening with us is that when my friend arrived for the shoot and we started taking photos we quickly realized that we didn’t really have too many clues when it comes to posing for these types of shots. The first shots I took were quite bad and we quickly realized that we (or I) were not prepared. We decided to take a break and I pulled out a few of my photography magazines and books where I knew there would be examples of some poses that we could aim for.

We chose a pose that we wanted to start with - a shot of her standing with her back to the camera - the focus being her back - lit from the side to accentuate her curves. We saw this ‘classic’ nude shot in a couple of different books and thought it’d be a good place to start. Knowing what we wanted to achieve in this shot helped a lot. Taking nude shots is not as simple as grabbing a camera and getting your gear off - it helps to know what shot you’re attempting to get.

2. Try Black and While - at the start of our shoot we were shooting in color. The results were quite confronting to my model. She is a beautiful woman but even the best of us have a few blemishes or blotches on our skin that can be quite eye catching in shots. I had been intending to shoot in color and convert the images to black and white later but on seeing her reaction to the shots I’d taken decided to shoot in Black and White.

In doing so I noticed that the shots completely changed in their look and feel. They became less about the body in the shots and more about the shapes, the light, the shadows etc.

3. Warm up the Room - ok, so a practical tip and perhaps an obvious one. Make sure the heating is on! I actually didn’t notice the coolness of the room (I had my clothes on after all and perhaps had a bit of adrenaline at the thought of messing up the shoot) but my friend certainly did. It’s hard to pose and look relaxed when you’re shivering!

4. Use Longer Focal Lengths - this will probably vary from person to person but we found that things worked best when I shot with longer focal lengths. Perhaps it was partly that I wasn’t up real close and personal as I took my shots and this allowed my subject some personal space - but the shots when I used a longer lens were better than those when shooting with short ones. I had started off shooting with a 50mm lens but ended up using a Canon 85mm prime lens that I’d borrowed from a friend for most of the shoot and was very happy with the shots.

I also had a 70-200mm lens which came in handy towards the end of the shoot when we did some shots that focused upon taking some more close up shots of parts of her body - almost abstract type shots.

5. Anonymity Helps - another thing that we discovered as we went along is that the shots where my friend’s face was turned away from the camera were somehow more photogenic than those in which she was looking at the camera. Again it wasn’t that she’s not attractive or that she was uncomfortable with the situation - but something about seeing her face proved to be a little distracting in the images. Not seeing her face on the other hand added a little mystery into the shots. I’m not quite sure how to describe it any other way but the images also became a little less confronting.

6. Keep the mood relaxed and fun - I had the advantage of being friends with my subject and being a woman myself put her at ease more than if I were a male - however even with those two advantages it was a somewhat never wracking experience for both of us. Being naked in front of another person and being that other person can be quite confronting - although it can also be quite funny if you let it be. We took the ‘funny’ approach and spent a lot of the time giggling like school girls and I think it helped us move beyond the initial awkward stage.

I also had a couple of sheets and blankets handy so that between shots my friend was able to coverup and keep warm. We also used them to keep her covered when we were taking some of the close up shots later on where they couldn’t be seen.

7. My Home Studio - we used a couple of setups that worked well. One was with black material behind the model and a couple of spot lights lighting her from the side. We did this with the first shot that I mentioned above and it left us with the effect of her standing in front of a dark background. The other shot was her sitting on a chair that we covered with a white sheet. This we lit with natural light from a great window in my home.

My main advice is to keep it simple when it comes to your set up. You don’t really want your subject standing around while you adjust settings and get things set up - you want him or her to be relaxed and not put out by the experience.

8. Simple Poses - I wish I could show some of the shots we took (by my friend would be horrified with that as they were shots just for her husband and her and not the masses here at DPS) but the best shots were very very simple shots.

I’m not sure if this helps but I found that when I stopped treating my friend as a person wanting a portrait and started looking for shapes and considering how light was falling on her body (almost more like a landscape) that I started to get the best results. As a result I had her stand, sit and lay in comfortable positions and found myself moving around her more than having her move around me.

9. Cover Up - another lesson that we discovered over the morning that we shot was that sometimes less skin is more. We tried a few shots where my subject covered herself up in a number of ways - either by using her hands and arms to cover her torso or where she even at one point wore an unbuttoned shirt.

As it turned out some of these were her husbands favorites.

Over all the experience of photographing a naked person was one that was a great learning experience. I’m not sure that it will ever be something that I’ll do again (although my friend wants to do it again for their 20th anniversary) however it was one that taught me a lot. I am sure many other DPS readers have experiences that they could add to this in comments below - I’m looking forward to learning more from you.

PS from Darren: The DPS forums do have an area set aside for nude photography. This is a password protected area and one with fairly strict guidelines and well enforced moderation. If you’d like to be a part of it you need to be over 18 and approach one of our administrators (Sime or Darren) for a password.