Photoshop World 2009 Boston : Day 0

Today Vanelli took part in the Photo Safari pre-conference workshop with Joe McNally and Moose Peterson. Again, this my interpretation of everything that Vanelli told me about his day. Take a look…

One of the questions that Moose was asked a lot by attendees is what his favorite lens is. He takes a lot of different lens out with him and one thing Vanelli noticed is that there are a lot of fixed lens in the bag. But he always takes a wide angel and a fish eye lens with him as well.

On the photo safari itself Vanelli said that he stood right next to Moose and used Moose’s camera with all the same settings but his photos were not anything like the ones Moose was taking. Moose just has a great eye for composition and capturing that moment. Another thing to note is that Moose does not crop his photos at all. What you see composition wise is what came out of the camera from the exposure he took. When using a zoom lens he said to move forward or back; don’t use the zoom!

Some more good information from Moose… he doesn’t use a flash on most animals, only birds. Using a flash with birds will bring out their color. Another thing to think about is that when an animal gets wet, a bear for example, there will be a lot of spectral highlights because of the light reflection off of the water.

He also picked up a few tips on composition from Moose… the minds eye goes to the whitest and brightest point. There is also a strong tendancy to start at the top of an image and go down. So those are two things to think about when composing a scene. You want to lead the viewer through your composition instead of having their eyes wandering around aimlessly. Exposure and light produces emotion, mood, and passion. Make sure that your composition tells a story so include or excluse various things to make sure you are telling the story that you want to tell. He also looks for sharpness and depth of field in his compositions.

With Joe McNally, the master of light, they were using a lot of diffusers and reflectors in his shooting. The distance of the lights from the subject depends on how much you want the light to spread. Of course using a diffuser and reflector will change this variable as well.

One killer thing to think about that Vanelli picked up from McNally is this… when you change the EV setting in your camera it is a global change. So everything is effected by it. When you change the EV on your flash, it is a local change. So if you use a light meter and exposure for the background and then change the EV in your camera, suddenly your exposure on the background is going to be off. To shoot with a model you shoot your background first and get the exposure right using the camera settings. Changing the EV on your camera will help to saturate the colors in the background scene. Then you bring your model in and use the EV on the flash units to change the power to get the proper exposure of the model.

So there you have it… Vanelli’s experience and knowledge that he picked up from the NAPP Photo Safari pre-conference work shop. And, of course, right as I finish typing this up Vanelli sends me a photo he took from his Black Berry of him and Ben Willmore hanging out. Apparently Ben’s question to me is “Where are you??” My answer… “Sitting at home typing up Vanelli’s notes!”. Photography assistants never get the glory. *Sigh*

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