Blog Marco

I had a photography assignment tonight - but before I left I Googled "sunset polariser sydney" so as to do a bit of research of what results to expect if I use my polariser (or in american terms polarizer) during a sunset session. You see - I was going to be taking photos on a boat in Sydney Harbour and I wanted to plan a bit... Anyhow - everything went fine - except that the weather was giving us hell on the top deck with all the wind and the sky just didn't give us the deep red sunsets we've been getting over the past few days. It was cloudy and grey :(

Anyway the job was uneventful - a Christmas party on a glass boat with an open top deck... took the photos with the harbour highlights as the background - the bridge, the Sydney skyline, Sydney Opera House... Then I was dropped off to develop the photos, got that done then caught a water taxi back to the boat to deliver the photos and then back to the wharf... well I did see Human Nature... I got dropped off at the Man O War wharf when I walked past a group of men all wearing the same thing and I had one of those moments where I thought I've seen the people before but not sure where. It's only when the short one turned that I recognised who they were...

ANYWAY - back to my Internet surfing and researching polarisation in sunsets... I didn't get much info - just the same information that I already knew about polarisers (polarizers) - and that is the effect of polarisation changes depending on the angle you are shooting with respect to the location of the light source. The most dramatic change is 90 degrees (perpendicular) to the light source.

I found a forum about modelling and photography and one member asked:

Can anyone shed some light on how the effect in shots 2, 3 and 5 in the following link is obtained? I love the style and think it'll be interesting to know how its acheived. I would also love to shoot with anyone who has shot in this style or wants to have a go at it.

http://www.mercermodels.com/model.asp?m_id=754

>> The most intelligible remark was:

Tom Holland is by far the Ozmodel master of this technique. Jason Milligan and Jason Cole are also dabbling in high power diffused or bounced flash out doors.

The trick is that an ambient exposure is set for a stop or so under what is needed and then the subject is overlit with the flash and the aperture set for optimal exposure while the shutter speed is pulled back a bit.

Time of day can also have an effect as it seems to have in the sample shots. A long enough shutter speed has been used, it seems, to allow for wind movement in the hair.

It's a technique that has been around quite a while and was colonised in the UK by Terry O'Niel and in the US of A by Annie Liebowitz.

In capable hands it is an ideal technique to ensure really good reproduction on really bad paper and presses. But of course it is also a very pleasing look.

>> And another...

rue Kris, but what I think is meant by long exposure is more like 1/4 or 1/8 of a sec....I have done those shots using a tripod....if the model stays still. The flash might fire at 1/250th of a sec freezing the model who is close to the flash then the shutter stays open to burn in the background. I know my 300D has a night shot setting that does just that!

I also have a feeling (although it is hard to tell with such small images) that there is a bit of post manipulation in photoshop....they almost have an infra red feel....perhaps there was an IR filter used on a digi camera...gives the sky an eerie light...like these

http://www.andry.alamsyah.net/

and would give an un-natural light to the model.....

But then again, the only way to know is ask the photographer.

>> And another...

A method of operating which I found most useful was to take a look at the day and decide whether it was going to be mostly sunny or mostly cloudy and set up for whichever I thought. Some models look better in diffused light while others look better in direct sun. It often came down to their skin colour and type.

We would simply wait out the periods of non-useful light.

Changing filters, exposure and lighting all the time is too much of an intrusion on the rapport with the model and the task at hand. PLUS, in shooting for a cover and anything up to 10 pages or more there needed to be some continuity. On the page it looked fine of the light on the model changed when she was in a different setting but for it to keep changing in the one set-up looked quite untidy.

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