How I Shoot: A Series

43 Comments By Rick Nunn

I wanna start off by saying I am lame, yep, really. Lame! All the way back in January of this year I wrote a post titled “How I Shoot, Part 1 ~ The Tools” with a view of doing two further posts; Part 2 ~ The Shoot & Part 3 ~ The Processing shortly after. For the past eight to ten weeks I have been trying to put together the sequel. To date I have deleted no less than six drafts of it, it’s just not been working. I realised today that I am trying to fit way too much into it, making it way too long & too much to take in, so I need to split into slightly more digestible chunks.

So the new plan is to do several posts, a series if you will, each featuring a different style of portrait, all using off camera flash. I want to start simple so the first of these posts will be a one light portrait onto a perfect black background — not dissimilar to this one:

#288 ~ Vacant

After the first post I will then continue to cover other styles like: low depth of field street portraits at night (my favourite kind!), crisp portraits on white, day time shots balanced with a flash — stuff like these:

^_^Self #7#152 ~ LeahAutumnMessy Hair Is Good

I plan to publish the first post on the 26th of May, a few gentle nudges over the next 2 weeks would be appreciated. So how does the new plan sound? Is there anything specifically people would like to see that I haven’t mentioned already?

43 Comments By Rick Nunn Tagged — Category — How I Shoot, Photography

Comments

Rick Nunn

Thanks Sam, I shot it portrait so I could get close enough (50mm not much room) and then put it square in post, it just felt right. :)

Rick Nunn

Sarah, I think it’s ok… you are a girl!

P.s. Thanks it took me a while to get the light in the right place to get the catch light like that.

Rick Nunn

Thanks :)

Sam, it’s one of my fave tshirts, but the funny thing is I don’t drink :P

Adam, fuck no! Get that screen calibrated!

MISS CHANCE

Great Work!

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Sundeep Toor

nice pic! love the contrast of super blurry background to the crisp focus on kym. More please! :D

and yeah. messy hair is good :)

Fuzzy_Orange

Told you that was THE lens for you mate – suits you perfectly

Where would you be without your fat mate twisting your indecisive arm??

Kym Ellis

Fucking awesome!
I mean, I should probably think about doing something with my hair in the morning but I don’t think that is really the point!
Nice work, and this lens is totally perfect for you, and it is so pretty to look at when you are pointing it in my face :)

Toby Howarth

Thats a fucking nice shot dude and you should totally start dating that Kym she improves your photos no end :P

Plus this lens is the one !

lizet87-nl.

soooooo nice!!! gosh i want that lens too! haha… my wishlist is just getting longer and longer…. awesome DOF!

REBEL SANTINO

Great portrait, love the lighting.

Just curious, how far were you from anything in the background? Looking to try something imilar like this soon, just got wireless!

Rick Nunn

Thanks dude, the easies way to do a shot like this is outside at night. I did it in my back yard & was about about 8 meters from my back fence. That way all the light from the strobe falls off before it hits it.

If you wanna get all technical you can work out the maths for your strobe, subject and back drop with the Inverse Square Law but if you are only just getting into the stobist side of things it’s probably over complicating things.

Just remember, if you are getting light on your backdrop move the flash closer to the subject and turn down the power.

REBEL SANTINO

Cool, thanks for the tips.I’ll get outside and have a play around.

My friend is giving me a 50cm x 50cm softbox and light stand so that will hopefully put me in the right direction as well.

Thanks again!

MrQwest

Would like to echo Mr Barker’s comments #excited

Seriously looking forward to this Rick.

Rick

I did the shoot for the post last night. So I am
fully on track to publish on Wednesday! :D

Oli

Is there some planed for the next steps –> Part 2 ~ The Shoot & Part 3 ~ The Processing

RickNunn

Probably, I don’t know. I don’t even have time to breath at the moment. You’ll get something when I’ve done something… and if thats not ok then tough.

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