Tag Archives: working with a model

Top 20 Photography Tutorials

I’ve written over 100 posts on this website now, and as I look back on it, I realise that a lot of it would probably be lost to many users, who have only started using the website recently. This is Expert Photography’s top 20 photography tutorials; they’re the most popular tutorials on my website, as decided by the visitors who viewed them. Hopefully you can find something new and learn something today.

#1 - 4 Steps To Mastering Creative Night Photography

If you look at my personal portfolio, you’ll notice that I’ve got a good amount of night photography in there, and that’s because night-time is one of my favourite times to shoot. Shooting at night for me, came about from the fact that I didn’t really have too much free time in the day, so I would go out and practice my photography with some friends at night. It’s a slightly harder skill to master because the shots take longer to expose, I liken it to shooting on film; you think a lot more about your settings and composition before you shoot, which helps you to hone in your skill much quicker.

#2 - 4 Steps To Understanding ISO

ISO is one of three factors which determine the exposure of a photo, along with aperture and shutter speed. To really get the most out of your photos you need to know what all 3 do and how you can use them. Read this post to gain a more in depth knowledge of how to use your camera properly and start taking expert photos. ISO doesn’t just effect the exposure of the photo, there’s also grain/digital noise, and the more you understad about what it does, the better your photos will come out.

#3 - Top 10 Photography Clichés You Should Avoid To Improve Your Photography

Photography is subjective, and people’s opinions on what’s cliché and what’s not is entirely up to them. Everything in moderation is the key to avoiding cliche photos, as you can get away with doing certain things a few times before it becomes boring and repetitive. If you’re new to photography, then avoiding the list of cliches below will help you to avoid taking photos that may well be dismissed as amateur.

A good photo will stand up to criticism, without the need for clichés or post processing.

#4 - 4 Steps To Understanding Focal Lengths

Knowing what the focal length means, especially in relation to your camera, is very important when it comes to buying lenses. This post will leave you well informed with the correct information at to what the lenses do, which ones are right for you, how to use them creatively, and all the technical speak you’ll need. It’s not just a case of how much a lens zooms, you’ve also go to be aware of the changes in perspective and the crop factor. This tutorial has had a steady stream of visitors since I posted it.

#5 - 4 Steps To Understanding Shutter Speed and Its Creative Uses

Shutter speed is the most obvious of the 3 factors that create an exposure, and it has the biggest effect to your photos. With a poor knowledge of how the shutter speed will affect your photos, you’ll end up with blurred results. This post teaches you the right speed for the right situation, as well as how to use the shutter speed creatively. This was the first thing I learned when I started photography, so that’s probably why I play around so much with different speeds and night photography.

#6 - 10 Reasons Your Photos Suck

If you’re trying to improve your photography, then it helps to know where you’re going wrong. This article is all about pointing out where you’re going wrong and what you should be doing to fix it. It’s not easy taking consistently good photos, but once you’ve gotten the hang of it, it becomes incredibly rewarding. I wish someone had pointed out where I was going wrong back when I started, I’m positive that I would have improved at a much faster rate.

#7 - How To: Shooting Into The Sun

Spring and summer is a great time to be outside, utilising the light that sun provides us, and shooting into the sun is a really creative way of capturing this. Shooting into the sun produces lens flare, but instead of it damaging your photos, you can learn to use it creatively to get spectacular results. It used to be something that I feared when taking photos, but now I embrace it, and adjust my exposure to produce some awesome results.

#8 - 10 Embarrassing Mistakes I Made As A Beginner Photographer

When I first bought my camera, I read the manual straight away; I used to take it on photo walks and read it before bed. This wasn’t really like me, but I knew I wanted to become good at photography and to do so, I was going to have to learn. I’d encourage everybody to do the same, but there’s only so much you can read in there; websites with lots of photos like this are much better. Here’s a list of stupid mistakes I made. How many have you made? How many are you still making?

#9 - 4 Steps To Understanding White Balance

If you’ve ever taken photos indoors, without a flash, and wondered why everyone looks so orange, then this post will definitely help you. White balance can be hard to master at first, but once you understand it a little more, it can become quite intuitive, and understanding white balance is absolutely key to making your photos look good. Auto white balance just isn’t up to the job these days, and I’ve noticed this particularly with Canon cameras, so the faster you learn, the sooner you’ll start producing better results.

#10 - How To: The Harris Shutter Effect

The Harris Shutter effect is a lot of fun to play around with when you’ve got some spare time and is an easy way to impress friends. This effect can be used in just about any situation where you can keep the camera steady and is a great way to show movement in a photo. It works by taking a sequence of photos and overlaying them in Photoshop or GIMP, and using different colour channels to overlap them.

#11 - 20 Photos And Tips For Shooting With Your Aperture Open

Shooting with the aperture wide open is a really good way of taking soft, naturally lit photos, as the aperture produces a shallow depth of field, and allow the maximum amount of light in. It’s also a great way of drawing the viewers eye to a certain part of the photo, as the majority of the photo will be out of focus. The photos in this post were shot on 3 different lenses; a 24-70 f/2.8, a 35mm f/1.4 and a 50mm f/1.8, and even though the maximum aperture varies, they were still shot at their maximum.

#12 - 10 Top Tips To Taking Sharper Photos

Quality photos come from a good knowledge of how to take them properly. Taking sharper images are isn’t actually nearly as hard as you may think, the techniques are simple, and easily achieved by most people. I get asked all the time how I manage to take such sharp photos, and that’s the reason that I wrote this tutorial. This list will help you improve your images, to get the sort of detail you’ve been looking for, in 10 easy steps.

#13 - Understanding Metering Modes

Metering is the process that the camera goes through to look at a scene and work out what the exposure should be. There’s a variety of different modes that you can use to best suit the type of photo that you’re taking and in this post we’ll be looking at exactly what the modes do and when you should be using them. Simply switching from spot metering to evaluative metering can have a massive difference, like it’s had in the photo below. It ignores the sun from the sky, and meters for the majority of the scene.

#14 - How To: Working With A Model

Working with models is a great way to experiment with photos that you couldn’t take on your own, and it often leads to even better photos as you have someone to bounce ideas off. This post covers everything you need to know about working with a model and how to act professionally around them to get the best results. Depending on where you find your models, will change how you should behave with them, but common sense applies to most, and it usually ends up being a lot of fun.

#15 - 5 Steps To Understanding Aperture

Aperture is 1 of 3 factors that create an exposure, so understanding aperture is a good way of getting to grips with taking an evenly exposed photo. There are also negative and creative effects of different apertures and this post will teach you what they are and how to use them to your advantage. Aperture is probably one of the most difficult parts of exposure to get to grips with, but when you do, your understanding will yield much better results.

#16 - Understanding Exposure

Simply put: a photo is an exposure, and the more you understand about exposure, the better your photos will be. Once you start to grasp exactly what aperture, shutter speed and ISO does to a photo, you’ll know how to use them correctly and creatively. This posts covers how to create the right exposure for a situation, as well as the negative consequences of each exposure factor. There are also links to read up in much more detail.

#17 - When You Should And Should NOT Use A Flash

I used to think of myself as someone who didn’t use the flash on the camera, but that was because I was completely unaware of the difference an off camera flash can make. I almost always carry one with me whenever I’m out now, even in the day time, as there’s a ton of different uses for it. We’re gonna start by looking at possible uses of the flash and then look at when you wouldn’t want to use it.

#18 - The Ultimate Guide To Natural Light Photography

Natural light is type of lighting that we’re all very familiar with, but have you ever actually stopped for a moment to think about the effect that it has on your photography and how you can use it to your advantage? The difference between studio lighting or flashes and natural light is that we have very little control over it and its unpredictable nature, meaning that we have work around it, and with it.

#19 - How To: Fill Flash

We’ve all been there in a moment of frustration when we’re first starting out, wondering just why an expensive digital SLR camera won’t capture what our eyes are seeing, especially when a pocket camera does it with ease. That’s because SLR’s aren’t as intelligent as our eyes and they hand back the control that the pocket cam takes away. This post will help you to get one step closer to the perfect exposure.

#20 - How To: Low Light Photography

The buttons you press on a camera to produce the right exposure in low light, are all the same as when you shoot in the middle of the day; the same rules of exposure apply, it’s just a little harder to get there. When there’s less light in a scene, you have 2 choices; either you create more light yourself or you change the settings on your camera to react differently to the light available. This tutorial is all about how to do that.That’s all 20. If you have enjoyed them, then I would encourage you to click ‘Like’ below and become a part of my rapidly growing fan page. Thanks, Josh.

How to Work with a Model and get Great Results

Before the Shoot

The first step you’ll need to take is to find a model, and this really isn’t that hard, you basically have 2 options – paid or unpaid. Professional models can provide better results, are easier to work with and less complacent, but from my experience, I can get just as good results with amateurs and friends. If your shoot has a budget for one, i’d always hire a pro, and they can be found in a variety of directories through google – just be sure to include the area you’re working in, in the search term. On some occasions you may find a model who will work for you, just so that they can get some more recent photos for their portfolio, but this is rare for amateurs, unless the models themselves are amateurs as well. This is often referred to as TF (Time For) modelling.

Once you’ve found the model you want to use, talk to them about what you want to get out of the shoot and what they’re comfortable doing. This step is especially important if they’re a friend of yours – if it’s a swimsuit shoot you’re doing, that’s the sort of thing they’re going to want to know beforehand. If you’ve hired a professional, all this information will be laid out for them when you’re hiring them, but I always like to go through it one more time to make sure they’re comfortable.

Here’s a few topic you will want to talk about:
Confirm pay rates, travel expenses and any accommodation
Date and time of shoot
The sort of photo’s you’re going to be taking
Who’s supplying the clothing and make up

If you’ve never worked with a model before, I strongly suggest that you find your best looking friend and talk them into doing some photos with you while you’re still learning. Some techniques you may want to try can be time consuming and it’s best to use a forgiving friend that’s not charging you by the hour to be there.

The final thing you’ll want to do before you start is to find a location. I personally don’t like using studios for photography as I don’t particularly like the results; I find them to be a bit sterile and boring and I reckon there’s much better locations to be had where you can work in compositional techniques to the photos. That’s my 2 cents anyway, but whatever you do, make sure you find a good location and if it’s outdoors, a dry alternative. It’s best to do this all in advance so that you’re not wasting time on the day and you know roughly what sort of photos you can take there.

Ok, now that you’ve got yourself a model and found a location, it’s time to start shooting.

During the Shoot

Rule number 1, don’t be a perve. This should really go without saying, but i’ll say it anyway, respect the model’s privacy – your reputation depends on it. Make sure that your model is comfortable in their environment and has everything they need. Whatever you do, don’t touch them without permission and if you want to adjust something, make sure you ask first. If you want them to adjust their clothing or take something off, then don’t be afraid to ask, just so long as you’re being professional about it. When it comes to them getting changed, give them space to do it privately and stop taking photos of anything while they’re doing it.

The best results come from a happy and relaxed subject so when i’m working, I try to help them relax by talking to them and making them laugh. Ask them how they are and try to be as funny as possible – the more comfortable they are around you, the better the results will be. This is a great technique at the beginning of the session, just don’t carry it on too much or you’ll end up with a lot of photos of them mid sentence, which doesn’t really work too well.

Model’s aren’t stupid and are usually quite experienced, so if they’ve got an idea about how to pose or where to take a photo, it’s usually worth listening to. I find that my best photos usually come out from combining ideas with my model in an effort to improve on the last photo taken. If you’ve got an idea of how you want them to pose, but don’t really know how to describe it, then adopt the pose yourself, no matter how stupid you may feel. Looking stupid yourself will only help to relax the model and break the ice, and taking the pose yourself will help you to get the shot you want sooner.

If you’re going to be doing some underwear/bikini/topless/nude photography, then make sure that you don’t just dive straight in – take some photos with clothes on first so that they’ve warmed up to the idea and are more comfortable around you. The photo below came at the end of the session and it was the model who suggested that it might work better if she didn’t have a top on.After the Shoot

Ask the model to sign a model release form for you stating what you can use the photos for. If you’re small time to start with, you may not think this is much of a big deal, but you never know how your relationship with the model may change if one of you becomes more successful. It’s always best to cover your ass now so you don’t have to worry about it in the future.

If you’re happy with your model, make sure you recommend them on tell the organisation they work for as this small gesture will go a long way to models being more comfortable around you in the future. If you agreed to share the photos with the model, make sure she gets them and thank her for her time.

A small note to end on: I personally love working with models as I find the human side to be good fun and more creative when you’ve got someone that knows what they’re talking about to bounce ideas off. I typically don’t use models more then twice though as otherwise your photos will start to look a bit too similar. If you’ve never shot with a model before, grab a friend and spend the afternoon with them with the incentive that they’ll get ‘an awesome new Facebook profile picture’ from it.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment and we’ll get back to you.

How I used Light Painting to Capture this Photo of a Model

In this new series entitled ‘Shoot My Shot’, I’m going to show you a photo that i’ve taken and the steps that I took to get there to help you understand how the Pro’s take their photos and to reassure you that we get just as many misses for just 1 hit!

What You’ll Need

A model – doesn’t have to be a pro, just a willing participant
A tripod to keep things steady
A shutter release cable to minimalise camera shake (optional)
A roundabout or another moving object
An external flash that you can fire at will

The Light Painting Concept

The concept for this photo was to make it appear as if the same girl was in multiple places in the same photo at the same time. I’m using a concept known as light painting that you can read more about my clicking on the link. Couple things to note before we get started; the model I used was an absolute pro, but I still had to be quick as it was freezing out and she as sitting on metal roundabout, also it’s dark out so it was hard to compose a shot with very little light. Before I show you where I started, have a look at my final image:

Below is my first image, and as you can see, there’s plenty wrong with it. For a start, the model is only in the photo twice and they completely overlap. Also, there’s too much dead space at the top of the photo and it’s slightly off center. The settings used for this photo were ISO 320, f/5.6 for 4 seconds. The first thing I noticed is that 4 seconds was nowhere near long enough to get the photo that I wanted, I increase that to 15 seconds for the rest of the photos. This will allow the model to appear more then twice in the photo and have the flash appear from more angles.

For my next shot, I used a longer shutter speed and that allowed me to move the model around the image more times without having to worry too much about the time. I also straightened up the image a bit and pointed the camera down slightly. Even with the longer shutter speed, I didn’t pay enough care and attention as to where exactly the model was positioned when I set off the flashes, and because I had the extra time, I ended up setting off too many flashes and that made the photo quite messy. For the rest of the photos, I decided to stick to just 3 carefully chosen positions. Another couple things I noticed are that I didn’t step far back enough when setting of the flashes and you can clearly see my foot on the left and also, the photo still is not quite symmetrical yet. Time to take another photo.

This third photo is certainly a step in the right direction, but with 3 main flaws, the most obvious of which is the red line running across the middle of the photo. This came from the light on my flash indicating that it was ready to set off another strobe of light, I need to keep this covered in future or it’ll ruin the shot. Secondly, and less noticeable to most, is that there’s still too much dead space at the top of the photo, I need to either zoom in or recompose the shot. Finally, the model simply doesn’t stand out enough, and this comes from there not being enough light in the photo; the best way to counter this is to set off more flashes for each position – previously it was only 1 or 2.

Finally I managed to frame the shot just how I wanted it in this photo and I did so by zooming in by 4mm in focal length (if you want to understand focal length better, click on that link). Now this is a lot better then before, the whole composition is a lot better and the positioning of the model is nearly perfect. The positioning of the model in the center still isn’t quite to my exacting standards and there’s still not enough light on the model in the 2 other positions so it’s time to go back and take one more shot.

This is much more like it. Whenever I start out with a photo, I like to try and picture the best result I could hope for in my head and this is basically it. Considering how the model is sitting, having her head off center really helps with the balance of the photo as her legs go off to the right of the frame, it also means that she’s not overlapping the other exposures of herself. In post production I slightly increased the exposure and did a tiny amount of cropping, just to satisfy my eyes, and i was done. Hope you like it!

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment and we’ll get back to you.