My basic definition of natural and surreal lighting is very simple, natural is things people can and usually see with their eyes while surreal is something they see in their mind but not with their eyes.

So what is more difficult to do? To me its natural lighting, since there are limitations on what you can do, a greater understanding on how people look at images is required. There are bounderies that one must stay within that everyone that has a pair of eyes know such bounderies. A natural lighting often requires the look of a subject being lit by only one light, since we only have one sun, but not necessarily the set-up was done with just a single light. So technically speaking one must learn to integrate multiple number of lights so that only one is noticeable to the viewer.

So if natural lighting is more difficult, is surreal lighting easier? Easier, yes since in a surreal effect there is nothing that bounds a photographer but his imagination. It may be easier in my opinion but not necessarily easy; it’s quite difficult to break the boundaries of lighting if one doesn’t have a good grasp of the basics. Surreal photography often start as an imagination, skill is required to translate that imagination into a camera. Since we really can’t see a person’s imagination, we always presume that the photo being represented is indeed that person’s imagination. The photographer may have planned a natural looking photo but ended up getting a surreal photo, the beauty of this is no one knows this was purely accidental.

My examples of natural and surreal lighting:

Natural – Shot using strobes indoor, but was set to look like it was shoot under available light outdoor.

Surreal – Used a combination of strobes and continous lighting, shot to show some movements within a still photo. Lights crossing the path of the model and motion blur is not something we get to see with our naked eye.

I use to have a totally different view on these types of cheap photographers, I use to hate them, thinking they would eventually bring down the industry.  Now, because of the trust of my clients I have realized, the negative effect I was worried about affected them (cheap photographers) more than those who are already well established in the industry.

I have always believed that to be a success in this industry, that you must be hired for what you can create and not for how less you charge. I am blessed with clients who believes in my ability to provide them photos they need rather than because I am cheaper, which is rarely the case.

Here are my thoughts on this:

1. Photography should not always be about money, but Business should always be about money, if you want to make your photography as a business then money becomes very important. If you are doing it for the passion, you are better of not charging than being labeled as a cheap photographer.

2. No one can dictate how much you charge, but make sure what you charge covers everything, not just “GIMIK” money or “GADGETS” money. The biggest mistake newcomers make is only costing for their time and often neglect adding enough money for gear replacement, depreciation, repair and acquisition. Majority of other business start acquiring equipment with clear intention to use it in the business, thus costing of the equipment is included in their overhead expenses. In photography on the other hand, many newcomer acquired their equipment during their hobbyist days, that when they started charging they have forgotten to include the gear as part of the computation, as if it was free.

3. If you charge low (or cheap), you need to accept the fact that you will be labeled as a cheap photographer, weather or not that is an insult or not. So don’t be insulted, in the same way those Jollyjeep food stall owners take no offense when people say “dito na lang tayo, cheap kasi”. Clients who cater to the AB market, tends to get suppliers (photographers included) who also cater to the same market, it could be because both have better understanding of the market or it could also be protecting their own reputation, so do not expect the AB market to start rolling in, because of your label as cheap photographer.

4. If you have to charge really low, since this is the only thing you think you have to do to get into the industry, then you are not ready to get into the industry. Entry to the industry is only part of the battle, longevity is the bigger battle, sadly cheap rates doesn’t help on the longevity department.

5. By charging cheap, you are targeting a budget concious market who hire photographer based on rates and not on quality, so no matter how much better you get in your photography, you run the big risk of loosing all your clients the moment you increase your price.  Most companies / clients do budgeting of projects in advance, and tend to use current rates as basis for the budgeting of future projects, so as soon as you increase your rates, they have no other choice but to find someone else willing to do the project at your old rate (or the rate they budgeted for). You can’t really blame them for doing so, since you yourself were the one who made them realize that photographers can be hired cheap.

Here is my presentation when I was invited as one of the speakers during the PHPHOTO EB and PHPHOTO website launch last June 19, 2010 held during the 15th Graphic Expo 2010 held at SMX Convention center.

Good day PHPHOTO, I would like to talk about strobe misconceptions, in hopes of making you all want to use your flash more often. The very first misconception is people presume that photos shot with a strobe will make it look unnatural. Though by proper use, an image can still look natural even when you use a strobe. Here is an example, where I used a flash to the model’s left to substitute where the Sun would have lit the model.

I can also use a flash to fill in shadows, the flash will help bring out details on the dark areas without making it look unnatural.

I can also use a flash to replicate an outdoor scene, this photo was in-fact shot indoors, I had to add lights to the background to help make the scene.

Another misconception people have, is that you can control a flash with your shutter speed. That’s totally false, because a flash can only be controlled with the aperture, here you can see as I change the shutter speed, only the ambient scene is changed and not the exposure of the flash on the model.

Since the shutter speed doesn’t affect your flash exposure, you can increase the speed to underexpose the ambient light to achieve a bluer sky.

Which means you can turn day into night by this underexposure technique. Just making sure that you use your flash on your subject so that the subject is still well lit.

You can also turn night into day, but this time slowing down the shutter speed to gather enough light left in the ambient scene, just like this photo that was taken close to 7:00 PM

Since a flash will always fire at a high speed, it will stop motion and freeze your subject.

With means you can intentionally move your camera during a long exposure to create unique light trails and still keep your subject sharp due to the freezing action of the flash.

You can also keep your camera steady with a tripod and move any continuous lights during a long exposure to create the light pattern.

People seems to expect that when you use a flash it should make the subject brighly lit. Well lit doesn’t always mean perfectly exposure. Here are some examples of underexposed shot that still look right.

Here is another example of an intentional dark shot. So remember when you use a flash it doesn’t have to always make everythng bright.

Well lit can also mean overexposure, in this case I wanted to overexpose the background so that the food stands over the background.

In these two examples I use overexposure to add some glow to the faces of my models.

When using a flash, it doesn’t mean you have to eliminate shadows, which are very critical to a photograph. In can help add drama to a photo.

Shadows help bring out texture to your subjects, specialy when you shoot food and products.

No shadows, means flat photo, thus no texture.

Shadows help show form, to highlight curves.

If you still feel you are in the dark, feel free to visit my website and enroll in my lighting seminar.

I recently was in a discussion with some amatuer photgraphers who have only been into photgraphy these past few years, over the discussion I was surprised on how much technical information they had. From basic photgraphy all the way to studio lighting, things that took me over 20 years to learn and master. What I found out was, how accessible these information was, from books, magazines, on-line materials and websites, but do they always equate to better picture? Sadly, No.

This got me thinking, knowledge, too much, is it still good?

Majority of the accessible information are very technical, but photography even now in the digital era, is still art, and no matter how technical it has become, aesthetics still is the key factor to getting a good picture. A bad picture, no matter how well focused, lit or exposed it is, still is a bad picture.

(Here is a classic example of a picture that is well focused, well lit, well exposed, and even in fact a very technical set-up, but yet yields a crappy photo. A model with a dead expression, too much distracting elements in the background, lighting that doesn’t match the model and etc.)

Nowadays, people are becoming more and more impatient, they want to become great photographers overnight. A great photographer must not just know things, but needs to master them for it to become second nature. Mastering something takes time. As these new photographer learn something new, they don’t give themselves enough time to actually master what they learn, and in some cases have not been employed in practical use, yet move on to learning something new. So when push come to shove and they are tasked to put these knowledge to an actual shoot, they tend to do it half baked. In doing so, they usually end up with outputs that is not to their expectations, so they keep tinkering with their gadgets and other technical things and ending up forgeting the most important part of the shoot, the one in front of the camera, their SUBJECT.

I was then thrown back a question, if too much knowledge is not good, why do I keep teaching?

I don’t teach everything there is about lighting, but instead teach you the parts of lighting that you need, fundamentals. This is to make sure further learning about the subject becomes easier. Not everything out there, even if its printed on a book or posted on a website, are knowledge needed. I also beleive that learning with a live instructor is so much better than learning from inanimate sources that lack validation. As an instructor, I can put emphasis on things that matter most, and make sure its understood before moving forward. My style of a hands-on class, means that these knowledge are put to a test. Participants will be taught of how to set-up and forget, and instead concentrate on the subject in front of them.

As a final word, just like when you construct a building, you can’t go up with out first building a good foundation. Learn and master the basic fundamentals, and trust me the rest will come easily.

More topics!

More days!

More fun!

Coming soon this February 2010!