DickArnold

Move your light back and filter it through a hanging sheet. You may be able to use 2.8. I never tried it. One other thought is to use a neutral density filter. I met Monte in person. He was quite a character. His work is stunning. I never used bare bulb but read what he says about it. This involves technique as well as math I think. However what makes pictures in my humble opinion is rapport between the photographer and subject. One other thought is use of reflectors. I did some models last year with a warm reflector that were really effective.

Monte Zucker, a great flash photographer with bare bulbs and other lighting arrangements andwho was very well known, taught me very simple studio lighting arrangements that I have used for over thirty years. I had my own studio and made money doing PR, portraits and wedding photos with a very basic and inexpensive set of lights and an old Shepherd light meter. I have never used math to set up my lights. I was recently called out of retirement to photograph a well known personage. I dragged those old cobwebby lights out and took them the their house to shoot PR pictures. I got a sizable bonus. For portraits I have usually used one light with a large softbox for main light and and a fill light some where around the camera that is set one or two stops dimmer measured at the subject. I have used a hair light set to my taste and a background light on a cloth or paper background that properly set obviates the necessity of using a lens setting for bokeh. I have made money doing this. In this digital age I shoot on a white background at times so I can easily change the background color in post. I kept telling myself that I ought replace those old cheap Novatron lights but they kept working and still do. As a result of my age I learned from an old school photographer. I have found that lighting ratios over two stop difference are usually too contrasty..

How dare you all stereotype all old photographers. I am 82. I swim with a competition swim club that has members of all ages. I will swim 2000 yards tonight in a coached rather demanding workout. All ages in our club get along well. My only concession to my age is that I don't wear competition briefs as I don't want scare little children or offend anyone else. I photograph large swim meets. Brad how far can you swim? LOL. I miss a lot of the discussion that used to go on here. It's fun to participate when I can. I have made dozens of friends swimming all of them younger than m except for the few old guys I swim against from other clubs. I am an old military pilot and I love to sit around and BS with old pilots. First liar doesn't have a chance. I love to talk about photography also. Places to do that are few and far between. DPR has a function but it is really gear oriented. They get offended when one tries to talk about actual pictures and the art of photography. This is a privately owned site and I agree with Bob that they can control content. Doing that here seems pointless. My only request here is a plea to stop ageism. Hopefully you will all get there one day if you survive. A lot of my friends haven't. Be kind to your elders. We get lots of people much younger than me in US Masters Swimming. Having studied and participated in organizational development I think there is something amiss in the managment of PN. Entropy is the word. The ROI here must be declining. Maybe we are a tax write-off. Maybe you all could learn something from the oldsters you all know. I am a Viet vet and I have witnessed history repeat itself a couple of time since then.

I just got off of DPR. There were almost a thousand comments on the 5DS/R. There are a lot of attacks upon Canon for what they did not do. I am using a 7DII with GPS (I worked on civil aviation GPS for about 7 years) and I have not seriously tried GPS yet to see if it works. It is not essential to me for picture taking. What I think the best thing about the 7DII is superb and highly useful focusing and tracking and the new exposure system. My work is not so precise that I worry about dynamic range. I have a fully articulating screen on an SL1 which is nice but not essential.. To me GPS and Wifi are like accessories on a car; they are not essential to the actual function of moving the car or to taking pictures. What I care about when I get to shooting sports is the control of light, tracking, sharp frame rate and noise. The more I learn about the 7DII the more precise control I find I have over how to use contol functions. I just shot an indoor swim meet at ISO 6400 to make sure achieved good shutter speeds. The pictures take some processing but they look good on the web and in print once that is done. The swimmers really liked them. Once I have the camera in hand basic functions are what I care about; not the bells and whistles.. Those essential functions are what make the pictures. I have proven to myself over a long aviation career with a lot of different airplanes that given enough practice I can adapt to almost any reasonable physical function. The other thing that I have trouble understanding is the visceral hate and bashing of Canon. I have no control over what they do. I just buy a tool from them if I like their product and use it. If one really needs dynamic range go to Nikon. I accept what I get and learn how to use it. Stuff is so good these days there is a lot of choice. I took a foray into Sony about three years ago after over twenty years with Canon while still keeping my Canon gear. I sold the Sony gear. It had some flaws. Canon compatibility and lenses are really important to me, I find..

Right on Mark.

I never reached near Monte's level. I was and am at best a competent average professional level photographer. He is at the top level extreme. My comparison deals somewhere around the mid level of the bell curve or at the mean of so-called pros. You want to compare the extremes of the curve rather than the mean or average where most frequency lies. My point still stands that at least with the work I have done my customers could viscerally Identify good work from mundane by their reactions to the delivered product. I know when I do well when I am told so or there is a physical response like a smile, a hug or a tear. Weddings are emotional events, mostly. I also think that good wedding photography depends upon rapport established before the event so that there is good communication for picture taking during the event. Pros are much better at this in my experience than the average amateur. This is evident in the capture of genuine emotion in candid work and spontaneity in formal poses. There is much more to photographing weddings that just technical competence. As I said above I know a lot of really good amateurs who would do really good jobs at weddings. Rather than draw the line at pro and amateur I would draw the line at experience, competence and good gear.

Having done weddings I can certainly tell when a bride or family member is pleased with how they look. In my experience customers are viscerally moved by good, well composed, emotionally satisfying expressive photographs. They react with oohs and aahs rather than make technical judgments. These reactions follow their innate talent to see the difference between satisfying and disappointing pictures. I have also seen wedding parties where a then pro like failed to produce this. I have a good example where a wedding party was so hung over and half sick that it was impossible to evoke emotion or even a smile in the photographs. They paid me, however. Amateurs with decent equipment can produce really good photographs but odds are that professionals with experience do this much more consistently and more often. I took some lessons from Monte Zucker who was a wedding master photographer and marketer. People went to him because his photographs were so damn good. There are hacks out there as stated above. Although I don't do weddings anymore I do a lot of people photography where I get reactions from a large group as we know one another. As our contact is long term I get their reactions when I post something they like and they are quite astute in their judgments. It would not have fit my business model if I thought the masses didn't know or care about quality of their wedding or other work. .

Linked-in would be a good start to begin networking and making friends that can help you to get clients or photo type jobs. It's a good way to get your name out and at the very least find some kindred souls. I photograph for a large local sports club for free as I am a member and if I were in business today I could get some work from them. I actually did come out of my retirement to photograph the head of a national olympic committee and family. I don't know what your sub-specialty is, but I found the only way I could achieve cash flow was from weddings. When I got started I deliberately substantially undercut the competition. It worked as did a reputation for two week delivery. Getting weddings ready for delivery that fast was hard work particularly when I did film. Working through a large number digital pictures is also hard work. I also did small weddings off weekends as this was in a town that attracted weddings. I got to know the owner and got exclusivity at a large local inn. I teamed up with a local JOP and got her referrals. I wish you the best and know you will succeed in the long run. I found that establishing rapport with customer like brides and families prior to the wedding made for willing subjects and also made for referrals. I did free work. I do almost all free work now. It does not do ones reputation any harm to shoot wounded warriors for free at their outings for example. It's also gratifying. You can do it.

Artful photography is wonderful but photographing for money is a business. You please the customer not yourself. When I had my business marketing came first. Processing and delivering product early or on time was important. Above all the product had to satisfy the client. Clent referrals grew my business. And yes I am a competent commercial photograph that can deliver a product. Art is nice but in an of itself, unless you are a lot better than I am, it does not draw many customers. Doing business over lunch is expensive.

Having run my own photo business I know a single customer is not that important unless one needs money to eat. One has to spend time and a lot of marketing effort to get going. It took me awhile to become established. I knocked on doors, joined and haunted the Chamber of Commerce, joined clubs, did a lot of cheap weddings, worked for a newspaper and worked on volunteer civic projects to become known, After some time the referrals started to come to me. No doubt you are highly technically qualified but business comes from marketing skills and a marketing strategy. Today I do a lot of volunteer work for things that I am interested in. It has brought referrals even though I am no longer in active photo business. If I were you I would be honest and say directly that you are getting started in the business and need to charge for work and then ask if they know of someone who might also need your services. I always had an hourly rate so I could quote on the spot. It worked for me.. Lots of people look for free work. If it is a worthwhile project I have sometimes given in. I think done in the right places it could get referrals. I imagine LA is a highly competitive area. You might start as a second shooter for an established photographer. I had a small but well equipped darkroom and studio. I sold almost every customer that walked through door for weddings. I dispayed blow ups of my work and did free portraits when we signed contracts before the events.

Light comes from a point source. If you surround your subject from a broad, close source the light is softer because the light falls on the subject from all sides. If you move the source back the light becomes more directional and shadows appear because objects like a nose get lit from a progressingly smaller source. Prove this to yourself by having someone point a flashlight at you and back away. You can't argue with physics. Fill light provides a way to control the density of shadows. Buy a used flash meter at Adorama, KEH, or B&H. I had my own studio and I proved this to myself over and over. Monte Zucker is one of the best wedding photographers that ever practiced the profession. My flash meter is a cheap Shepherd. I don't think they even make it anymore. He gave me a simple light set up that I have used for years. Key light close at an angle. Fill light by and higher than the camera. Vary the fill light ratio by moving the fill light back and forth.. If the main light reads f5.6 and you want a one stop lighting ratio you measure f8 from the fill. One stop works ok for a lot of pictures. Get a book. Learn some of this stuff. You are just practicing trial and error. Proper fill light would have taken care of your subjects black eye.

It's simple. A big soft box as close as you can get it and still get the picture at a bit of an angle really softens facial lighting. I use this with the elderly to fill the shadows and wrinkles. This spreads the directionality of the light. I also use a fill light further away at one or two stops below the key light to reduce contrast some on the broad side or short side of the face, whichever you choose. You should have a flash meter to determine lighting contrast. I have a twenty year old one that still works fine. Controlling the actual light use is better than trying to do it in LR or PS IMO. But I am old fashioned. I learned this technique from Monte Zucker. Chimping as you found out is sometimes not too effective. Edward Izq used short side in the first two pictures and broad side the second two in your posts. portraits. .

Thank you

How do I get the actual picture in the thread. I am a slow learner.

Part way there. Dragged and dropped.

http://www.photo.net/photo/14173234

picture I think

A try

Thank you Lex. Got that. Old pilots take some care and feeding. .

So Lex. I appreciate all of what you said but I still don't understand how to do something with my gallery files to move a file to to a thread. Attribute that to my thick headedness or that fact that I am just a retired dumb pilot who likes simple checklists.. I have about 160 pictures in my gallery. I supose I ought to edit that some Thank you. Dick Arnold

The reason I don't post more pictures is that I don't like to downsize and the rules here vary. This is not true in other sites where I have a single gallery and I can draw pictures for any purpose from it. The site, not me, resizes when necessary but allows larger sizes. As far as I know I cannot draw from my PN gallery. Maybe one can do that but I have yet to figure out how. I do not post on Canon Thursday because of downsiziing which affects sharpness and I don't like to re-process photos just to show off.

Occasionally there have been some good threads. Inasmuch as I have just bought some new gear I have spent some time on DP trying learn something about it. IMO there is very little comaradery there. It is mostly about gear and it gets heated over some trivialities IMO. I have been shown respect and friendly discourse here in the past. I cite WW as a good example of that. This site has just slowed down. I check it almost every day hoping to somehow get into some good conversation the opportunity for that has been diminishing IMO.

Fred. What I reported was my visceral reactions to three artists. I truly believe that "art is in the eye of the beholder". I don't dismiss anyone but also I am not moved by every piece of art I see. People have paid a lot of money to buy Pollack's work. My opinion is the only one I control. I don't think I like Munch's Primal Scream but it really moves me with a sense of desperation and agony that reminds me of what happened in the death camps.. It is powerful. But that is just my opinion. I visited the Rijks, The Hermitage and other museums on work visits to Europe. It is better than sitting at a bar sipping Heinekins watching television. It also puts me in my minescule place regarding my own photography.

When I used to stay at a small hotel near the Rijks Museum I recall lookiing at Night Watch having been repaired after vandalism and then before going to the Van Gogh Museum.looking at some of Pollack's work. I was overwhelmed by Rembrandt. Van Gogh proved that sharpness is not everything. I don't know what Pollack showed me except as Night Watch a very large canvas.. What a study in contrasts. If you would have shown me pictures portending the future of photography in 1999 when I was doing film weddings I would never have envisioned what I see now. I clearly do not know what the future holds from today.for photography. I am not clairvoyant nor is whoever did those 31 pictures in my humble non visionary opinioin.

If eight years is an old member, I am a loyal old timer. I think I have made a couple of friends here. Try that on other sites where they fight like cats and dogs with barbed insults. I am a face to face and eyeball to eyeball person but I like establishing relationships, if only fleeting, on this site. Landrum is a good old boy in the best sense, IMO, for instance. . I wish there were more activity here as I think some great and thoughtful discussions have gone on here in PN. I won't quit PN but I sometimes go astray looking for action and more information on my two new purchases; 7dII and 100-400II. I am excited about both.