Event/Party Photography Tips Just in Time for the Holidays

If your event and party photography is a little lacklustre or you just don’t seem to capture the magic in the moment, you might need to take a different approach. These tips will help put you in the right direction for your next family event, party or function:

     1. Plan, Plan, Plan. You might think the average event is planned enough without you thinking about it, but if you have been to a few Engagement Parties, Weddings or even a child’s birthday party you know it doesn’t always go off according to schedule and you will need to be prepared to be flexible at these times.

If you can look over a program of the day this will give you somewhat of a head start. You will be able to plan the gear you need to take – be mindful of your kit if you’re using a DSLR and think about how long and how far you will be walking with it all. It might be a good idea to visit the location/s ahead of time and if you feel so inclined, planning shots while there could come in handy.  If you can’t do these things, talk to the organisers. Small steps in preparation can at least ease some of the stress during the event.

 

     2.Try To Tell a Story. Most photographers aim to tell some sort of story of course, but with an event you usually have a distinct beginning, middle and end. Break the camera out early and try to capture establishing shots to give the viewer an experience of the whole party, not just the ceremonial aspects.

What kind of day/night was it? Who was there? Was it casual, formal? Show the room empty, filled up and even the aftermath of the event if you can stick around.

     3. Capture the Emotion. Search the crowd for those moments of elation, nostalgia, even the tears of a little kid who has dropped their ice cream cone. Tight close-ups work very well for single displays of emotion, and think about angles and going wider if you have a group to get in shot – think of a wedding bouquet toss or Christening shot.

 

     4. Don’t Be Afraid of Variety. Think about your positioning and without going too crazy and standing on your head, try high and lower angles, try photographing different shapes and alternating the zoom in and out. Do you have time for macro? Try this with table arrangements, small knick-knacks, even the snacks on offer and you might find some magic.

     5. Try To Relax and Be Candid. If you’re on edge and approaching people for posing in photos, this will rub off. If you are speaking to people be calm and try to make them feel at ease. Sometimes the best results come from just snapping away at the action as it unfolds, so take a deep breath and go with the flow.

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Basic Portrait Retouching with Adobe Photoshop

Post-processing of your photos is a vital element in the photography workflow. Luckily in this information and technology age this process is made fairly straightforward with powerful applications like Adobe Photoshop providing an in-depth myriad of options and capabilities to help you get your images looking the best they can be. 

In this short, but hopefully helpful article we would like to give you some pointers on adding a touch of magic to your portrait shots.

The tool names in the article are representative of those in Adobe Photoshop; however the techniques can be applied in many software suites. Consult your manual for the appropriate similar tools in your preferred software.

Find a recent portrait shot you’d like to improve; if possible use a RAW format file so you have the most data available for editing and let’s get started!

1. Check Your White Balance. Do the skin tones present in the photograph look natural? While you may have adjusted your settings in-camera, sometimes indoor lighting can be difficult to balance correctly. If your white balance needs adjusting, a simple way of doing this is as follows:

Click “Add level adjustment layer” by going to Layer – New Adjustment Layer - Levels and select “Auto”. Did this work? Sometimes it won’t do much of anything to improve your image. If that is the case we need to go deeper (and this will likely yield a better result anyway!).

Use the three “eyedropper” icons to pick the black, grey and white samples from your photo. Typically you can get away with simply using the black and white tonal value selectors, but if you find your images still requires further adjustment try picking grey as well. For these finer adjustments, hit up Image – Adjust – Hue/Saturation and make your finer adjustments to the colour there, paying attention to the overall tones in the image – if it starts looking a little too cool or warm bring the levels back slightly until you find a natural look.

2. Spot healing and skin softening. Everyone, even the big stars have skin marks and imperfections. Take a high-resolution photo of a face and they will often show up quite prominently. If you’d like to mask these a little, there are a couple of things you can do.

Spot healing tool (In the expandable Band-Aid icon on the tool panel) – This is a handy tool for removing blemishes, acne scars and other marks on the face. Don’t go completely nuts with it – just dab it over the real imperfections, don’t go removing every line and freckle as not only will the overuse give the image a plasticky look, it will remove the unique features of the face and the natural structure.

If you simply want to improve the appearance of something, such as a hairline with deep follicles or a mole, the clone tool can be a better option. Adjust the opacity for a more translucent effect that works well for natural blending of skin areas.

Skin softening – Everyone loves to look smooth and young, but overdoing this in the editing process will alter the natural look of the model – refining and softening the skin will give the face a lovely glow, but do keep it realistic or the person will look like a wax dummy. Less is more. Here’s a quick way:

First, duplicate the layer (Command+J on Mac, Control+J on PC).

Then invert that layer (Command+I/Control+I).

Add a “high pass” filter to the layer. You can do this by hitting Filter – Other – High pass. Use around setting 5. Hit “OK” and set the blending for the layer to “overlay”. Right now it may look quite scary, but we are not done yet.

Add “Gaussian Blur” by hitting Filter – Blur – Gaussian Blur and set this to half of the High pass filter setting, so 2.5 for the sake of this example. This should have it looking better.

If you like, you can now add a layer mask and work the face detail like lips and eyes back into the image if you have already worked on them.

3. Clean up the eyes. Perhaps the model still has glassy morning eyes, and some people simply have a redder look to their eyeballs in general. If you’d like to make them stand out by making the whites a little whiter, do the following:

Add a new blank layer (Perhaps change the name to something like “eyeball clean up”).
Change the blend mode to “Color”.

Pick the brush tool and ensure the opacity setting is around 50%.

Hold the ALT key down and pick some “good” white from the eye as a sample. 

(ALT+click on the good sample).

Paint the vessels and blotches with the brush tool.

Adjust the opacity of the layer if you find it looks a little overcooked.

And there you have it! Three tips for improving your portraits.

Check out our Adobe software products!

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Studio Lighting Tips: Three-Point Lighting Setup

If the photography bug has bitten you hard and you want to start doing some serious shooting, you might want to think about kitting yourself out with some lighting gear. If you’ve never used your own external lighting setups before, it can be a learning curve but the rewards are rich. See below for some great tips on getting better photos with controlled lighting:

1   Okay, first things first. Great lighting can be let down by poor composition and posing, especially when it comes to portraits. Take the time to set the scene properly. Watch for shrugged shoulders, stiffness, slouching and striking features hidden by poor positioning. You can also make use of props and accessories, and be sure to pay attention the background of your photos – it is better to enhance than detract from your subject.

It can be a little overwhelming playing director and having to guide your subject so specifically, but the results can be stunning. Try and breath some natural life into what can be seen as quite a rigid situation – tell a joke to get natural expressions of happiness and laughter, or give a totally left-field direction and you might just strike a gold pose. 

Just remember to keep snapping and try different things.

     There are many lighting setups, and once you learn the ropes you will be an unstoppable lighting machine that will have many ideas on what works for you. Portraits tend to be shot with a three-point lighting setup, and that is what we will focus on.

The Three Points:

1.       Main (or Key) Light:

This is your main lighting source, and is the primary point of illumination of your subject.  You can use a speedlite [ADD LINK] for this or a studio lighting kit [ADD LINK], sometimes referred to as flashes or strobes.

If you are using a speedlite, get it off your camera! On-camera flash can cause flat lighting, whereas you can use it to much greater effect off the camera with a flash trigger.

By using an off-camera light source you can use shadows and highlights to enhance bone structure, skin tone, eyes and other features of your subject’s face that you may not normally achieve.

No matter how good you get, with lighting comes testing and repositioning until it looks right. This can take an indeterminate amount of time! Be patient.

2.       Fill Light

 

This light will help soften harsh shadows caused by the main light. This will improve overall results and give your shots a more professional edge, though it is optional and if you are starting out and only have one light you can try reflectors to soften hard edges.

In terms of positioning, if the main light is to one side of the camera, the fill light is typically placed on the opposite side.

3.       Background Light

As you might have guessed, this one lights the background.  It will light up whatever happens to be in the background, which is essential if you have gone the whole hog and put together a set with props and the whole shebang.

The light is placed typically behind the subject, and is pointed at the background. Again, this is an option depending on your exact shooting situation, but if you don’t have a background light you can get away with using a dark backdrop in its place.

And there you go! As with anything in photography, it will take practice and you will be sure to have a ball while improving your skills. You won’t believe the difference some controlled lighting can make, so do feel free to check out our extensive range online, or pop into one of our stores to ask our knowledgeable staff.

Linky linky:

Studio and Lighting at DCW

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You wanted it, you got it.

Did you know that Digital Camera Warehouse produces home-grown video content just for you?

We have created some great tutorial videos to help you with studio lighting, portrait-taking and low light gig photography. These are just some of the videos on offer and these are updated frequently, so keep your eyes on PurVi: Purple Vision Videos from Digital Camera Warehouse!

Here's Al giving you the low-down on Low Light Gig Photography:

Need more? Head on over to the PurVi Page: 

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