Photo Weather
When I decided to earn a big chunk of my income with location portraiture (preferably outdoors), it became clear very soon that I had two options to make it work:
Move to California/South Afrika/Australia/… or learn to make good pictures in bad weather. The latter seems to work pretty fine. Last year I only had to postpone two shoots because of the bad weather (and believe me, we had a true bad weather year here).
Off course it’s fun to shoot at nice weather but I really enjoy bad weather too. I love my clients for being such troopers and most of them even enjoyed a bad weather session. I even think that bad weather often offers more creative possibilities.
Saturday I had booked a shoot with model Kaatje to expand her portofolio. She didn’t mind to work in the stormy wind and rain for about an hour.
Last year most of my equipment investments were done in function of being able to work in less favorable circumstances. Of course there’s my portable strobist-style lighting gear but buying the Canon 1D mkIII was also done for that reason although it might not be . This shoot was the kind of thing that makes me feel really happy about my camera choice. The ambient light levels were very low, but the good high iso images make it possible to shoot without flash (I only used flash on the first shot). The tough weather sealed body in combination with L-glass (except for the 50mm 1.4), allows me not to worry about the rain.
It was the first time that I was assisted by Marisa, who’s a photography student who’s doing an internship with me. Nice to see that some young people don’t mind getting their hands dirty, work hard and think on their feet.
After the outdoor session, we also did a few shots in my office. I’ll show some of the results soon.
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptMove to California/South Afrika/Australia/… or learn to make good pictures in bad weather. The latter seems to work pretty fine. Last year I only had to postpone two shoots because of the bad weather (and believe me, we had a true bad … [...]
good processing techniques used for all of the images! kinda like the first one because its very strobist-ish. heh.
By looking at the great collection of portraitures it looks like you have no trouble with the weather.
In fact I find the cloudy days give a great soft light and with a reflector and/or flash I can just add the right highlights or focus.
Niels Henrisken
wonderful series! tones, colors and light are just perfect. the one I prefer is the third, but they are all great portraits.
Paolo
these turned out really well!
how about moving to Seattle???
Your photos and videos are great. i have watched them over and over. Please make some more as they have helped me out a ton.
Rob
Great shots. I love the first two in particular. I personally find it much easier to shoot on cloudy days than sunny, and for that reason typically shoot indoors when it is sunny. I realize not everyone looks at it that way, but this almost always allows me to get good soft lighting without setting up any lights.
Thanks guys
@jose: Seattle sounds fine: bad weather, my all-time favorite rockband (Pearl Jam) and a super active photography community. But then again, I don’t want to take away business from Chase
I really like those pictures. I think you did a good job. And at least, overcast sky always gives you nice soft light (as long as the overcast ist not too strong).
I also have one question: How much Photoshop do you use ? I like the final look you achieved, I should finally start my enhanced Photoshop learning too. Maybe you could do a video on that too
that’s cool, then a holiday here is a must. I believe that I speak for the Seattle Flickr group in saying that we would LOVE to have you at one of our meet-ups!!!!
After checking your video’s it would be an honor to join you guys in Seattle. Maybe someday.
Andi, I don’t use photoshop much. I’ll try to find the time to post something about the postprocessing of some of these images.
Thanks, that would be very appreciated. I already suspected that you don’t use much, but you just manage to give them that little kick in addition to the already very good picture, which finally makes them excellent. Keep up your good work (and the sharing with use n00bs, of course
).
Good to see someone happy working with available light, without any superfluous “over lighting”.
Many years ago, one of my lighting camera mentors told me to “look at what’s there already” before I switched on anything else.
Simple is best.
Great series of work, I love your take on simple yet effective lighting, I work mainly in corporate and automotive in the UK and find not enough people really understand great lighting and just how amazing it can transform your work. I was lucky enough to be featured on Scott Kelby’s site in mid jan and have really taken steps now to improve my own technique and learn each and every day.
Thanks for a great insight
Rgds
Tim
Thanks guys
Great shots, it nice to see what other people do in bad weather. Thanks for the tips.
[...] couple of weeks ago, I showed you the bad weather outdoor series with model Kaatje. After quick meal we got into my office to shoot some more [...]
beautiful portraits, excellent work!
(faved on Flickr)
I love the images and all your videos in particularly confession #4/5 and this series of images.
Can you share some insight on how you got the effect in these images.. saturation/tone/ etc… you can email directly for your response.
cheers . ec
Play around with the individual color saturation sliders in Lightroom or Photoshop and you’ll get really close