A friend of a friend is a fashion designer. I met her at a fashion show at a local university when I took some pictures (from the audience for my friend, not in any official capacity). The other day, I was browsing through my Facebook news feed and I saw a batch of pictures crop up with her work…

This was probably the best picture out of the whole shoot. Most of them were very poorly lit, and the focus was soft (off?). I asked her how she ended up with the photographer, and her model had booked him. Oh well… her loss.

So what’s going on in this picture? And what’s wrong with it?

Keep reading…

Photo by: philroeder.

Found this one in the recent interesting pictures on Flickr. When I saw the thumbnail, I thought wow, that’s a cool image. Nice composition. Looking down a hallway and such. Then I clicked through, and read the description and it got even cooler. The picture was apparently taken in the ’50′s by an Air Force lieutenant and his son scanned it (and other pictures) to post to flickr. A cool image, and a cool story. Click through and check out the photostream if you’ve got time.

Photo by: Wil* Hughes.

This is a cool portrait taken against a city skyline. The location is really cool – the skyline in the background, and the rustic, worn decking in the foreground. What really brings this picture to life is some simple lighting. The camera is set to under-expose the ambient light (the sun) and make the background nice and dark. It might be a titch too dark for my taste, but you can’t argue with the concept. Then, there’s a light high and to camera right (which the white guy is probably looking at) that provides most of the light for the scene.

It looks like there might also be a fill light off to camera left – notice how the shadows under the white guy’s chin and left arm are soft, whereas the shadow areas on the black guy (chin and left arm) are completely black.  This suggests a fill light coming from the left, lighting the first guy and then being blocked from filling in on the second.

Nice location shot. Looks like a clean, simple lighting set up, and a great effect.