"Work is Love Made Visible." --Kahlil Gibran
Speaking of other wedding photographers, here is a photo I took of Dallas/Forth Worth photographer Lynn Michelle at the Digital Wedding Forum convention in Nashville. Sledgehammer of Light behind her, two speedlights aimed back, one aimed at me.
I had a wonderful time in Nashville and wish them all the best in flood recovery efforts.
Given a lot of traveling this year, with weddings as far as Singapore, and that we are more and more producing same-day slideshows and edits for our weddings (which you can see on my Facebook page), I figured we should ramp up our road warrior tools a bit, so I picked up the new 15-inch Core i7 Macbook Pro with higher-resolution anti-glare screen.
For this picture, I used a technique called “freelensing,” which I’ve been too nervous to do much of. Basically, by actually removing your lens from your camera before taking the picture and shifting it around, you can create strange, diagonal focus planes (like you see here), and also reduce your lenses’ minimum focusing distance (usually the 50mm f/1.2 AIS can’t get very close to its subject). It also means that I am going to have to make sure I or my assistants cleans my cameras sensors’ a LOT, since snapping photos without a lens on the camera is generally not recommended, and I usually keep effects like this to a minimum. But it’s a handy trick to know how to do. Up-and-coming photographer (and my Flickr pal) Gene Pease makes use of this trick really well.
Hi Ryan,
Thanks for posting this, long time ago that I was wondering about the existence of this trick. I’m pretty sure is what Nick Brandt used in his photography of Africa. I read once about it but then I read that he used a film camera, without lens connectors! so I was afraid to try it with my Nikon. Now not any more!
Thanks again,
Heber.
You’re still going to want to be careful, of course. Not the best during a dust storm.
Be careful, these i7 macbooks can get pretty hot. As cool as it may sound, I don’t think you’d want to light any shots with a burning macbook ;)
Sweet shot mate!! Def not a great idea for me living in country Australia!
Review of the MBP at all?
My high school photo teacher called this a “poor man’s macro.” I used to shoot these on film!
Gorgeous photos! I was a guest at Karen and Kamil’s wedding (and a friend of Lydia Chen) and really enjoyed how you captured the general geeky cool fun feeling of the wedding (and of all our friends LOL).
Saturday was an intensely, intensely bright day. For the geeks, it was f/32 bright. For the rest of you, that means eye-searingly bright, with hot sun and direct reflection off shimmering water. In other words, it’s not the kind of light that a tiny little speedlight can generally overpower.
But I have my ways.
hahahaha. f/32 bright…love it. :) I am going to start using that this summer in TX, “Dang, it’s f/32 bright out today!” ;)
Oh and beautiful shot as always! :)
Have you used a (single) Hammer of Light, without gelling it?
I think we need to rename you Photo McGyver ;) This is very cool. That top hat with his expression somehow makes me think of the veil characters in Batman.
Living in Australia, bright light like this is my Everest. Pray tell, how did you overpower!?
Please do tell. How in the world did you overpower “F32 light?” Enquiring minds want to know. I want to know.
Three flashes, very close.
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So here’s one that probably hasn’t been done before. This was a Brenizer Method with 31 images, lit by an iPad, AND composited to hide the light source. But I wasn’t just trying to do a trifecta of tricks for the heck of it, all I wanted to do was to solve the problems that would give Carol and Johann the image they wanted. Bringing out the lights of Boston’s skyline meant lighting them with a very, very weak light source. Luckily I had one on hand as a photo display.
I had my assistant light them as I shot them, and then move out of the way as I shot the rest of the scene. It’s not easy, but it works.
I’ve run out of words with which to respond to your awesomeness.
Yup. It was bound to happen. Stitch a composite. Very cool.
Aaaaaand this is why I am excited for the workshop.
The trials of Photoshop CS5 are available for download, and of course the first thing I did was to try a “Brenizer method” panorama on them. Since I like to be timely, here’s one I just shot a few hours ago, during an engagement shoot with Jennifer and Richard.
For new readers, basically the trick is to use a multi-image panorama to make for a super-shallow depth-of-field by using a longer lens. This was 18 images with an 85mm f/1.4. If I’d had to use a shorter lens like a 24mm to capture everything in one frame, all of that background foliage would be in focus as well. Here is an example of a single frame from the shot:
I have not been happy overall with the performance of CS4 in stitching these sorts of panoramas, keeping CS3 around or using a dedicated program like Autopano Pro. Is CS5 better? On the good side, I fed it 18 full-resolution images, which usually causes Photoshop to hang for a long time, if not crash. It took a while, but the progress was steady and measured, and produced an image without major artifacts. On the bad side, it still has the CS4 habit of throwing pieces it doesn’t know what to do with into the corner and not making it easy to move them:
Now the exciting part is “content aware fill,” which fills in gaps by taking into account all of the textures around it. And it seems to work really, really well in general. Here was the cropped section, with a gap the stitching couldn’t fill. One swipe of content-aware spot healing produced the image up top:
BUT you have to be careful when doing these panoramas, as the whole point of them is to create a very three-dimensional look where everything is in a certain amount of focus due to its relationship to the focal plane (like most pictures, just more so). Photoshop will very happily grab the surrounding textures even if they’re in a different part of the focal plane, which in this case would have made content-aware fills of the out-of-focus brown patches in the grass look out-of-place. Overall, though, it should be a valuable tool in the panorama arsental.
my biggest issue with doing the brenizer method was that ps would crash often even with a powerful machine… i will have to make a point of trying to get ps cs5 a try .. nice post!
Oh, so that’s where I’ve been going wrong when trying to make these panoramas – CS4 < CS3. (I haven't had a successful one since May 2009. Boo. Now I know.)
This year I told myself I need to learn and master this technique…still not perfect but I managed to understand it… thanks for showing this to us :)
Thanks for posting a real example. I’ve watched the videos and have been wondering how well it worked in a real life situation. I’m looking forward to using the content aware fill myself!
I tried out this effect with my trial copy of CS5 too and the content aware fill work pretty good in a lot of situations.
Here is a 19 shot panorama shot at 400mm (640mm equiv) f5.6 with beautifully narrow depth of field.
http://bighugelabs.com/onblack.php?id=4572366759&size=large
Just out of interest, have you ever tried using Hugin for stitching, rather than messing with CS4? I’ve used hugin exclusively for years and it’s done well for me. Plus it’s free.
An admirer of shallow depth of field :)
So what do you do if you end up with a patch like this while creating a panorama ? it happens a lot with me… Please help..
Exciting news! I’ll be joining the ranks of well-known photographers like Cliff Mautner and Joe McNally as a lecturer in Adorama’s workshop series. On June 21, I’ll be giving a talk on a subject near and dear to my heart: “Creativity on the Fly, Turning Bad Shooting Situations into Great Wedding Photos.”
Weddings are, at their heart, barely controlled chaos, and it is the photographers who learn to do good work even when everything is lined up against them who will be successful in the long run. And if there’s one thing that a long history of shooting in New York City has taught me, it’s how to deal with adversity. We’ll be discussing how to think through shoots when the light, the location, and time is against you, and hopefully have some fun. Just $35 for a two-hour lecture, which is about as inexpensive as anything gets in Manhattan.
Seating is limited, so click here to read more and sign up!
I just want to say that shot is freakin cool! I love it.
Sarah and Larry in Prospect Park. “Brenizer method,” 25 images with the 135mm f/2.
Awesome isolation! I just got a second hand 135 dc two weeks ago. A real classic.
Wow Ryan, thas real bokeh p0rn.
Simple, classic!
It’s just ridiculous how amazing this image is.
I love Flickr, but I think it’s been four years since I started a group there. I’m blessed to be busy with awesome clients, so I only participate in a couple existing groups. I mean, there’s a group for the Brenizer Method out there, and I didn’t even start it! But I’m a big Apple dork, and I know how many people out there love their iPhones (I shot for FOUR iPhone app developers last year!) so I’ve started a group for shots lit by these miniature softboxes. If you have any photos like that, feel free to join the party.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ryan Brenizer, Stoyan Shishev. Stoyan Shishev said: RT @ryanbrenizer ON THE BLOG: Flickr Group: “Lit by iPhone or iPad” http://bit.ly/94oYOt http://bit.ly/dBG0Mn [...]
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Lovely Concept Mate!
I bet its a trick question, but im going to stick with my gut saying its an iPhone. Mainly because the left and right sides are really close to the rings. The depth can be an iPad but who knows. Only you know Ryan.
gives me a great excuse to get me an ipad! great idea, ryan!
Ditto Daniel!
Great shot.
How cool is that?
very cool. what potential!
Now that is cool! Way to think outside the box!
Just wanted to say that I have been blown away by how creative you are in thinking outside the box. Keep it up!
Haha, that is such a great idea! Thanks for sharing Ryan!
[...] this day I decided I wanted to take a page from Ryan Brenizer’s book and use only my cell phone to light the shot. This shot is a little view into my life too, as I [...]
Since everyone guessed that I used the iPad yesterday, here’s one where I *did* use the iPad to create a textured, warm uplighting, using a custom color on the "Flashlight" app. After shooting in the unseasonably cold weather, Jamie and Phil were ready for some night, intimate scenes in a NYC coffeeshop (Café Grumpy, one of my favorites).
Really nice, Ryan! I’m going to have to start using my iPad for ambient light!
ahhh very tricksy! :)
I love the emotion and passion on his face :) Lots of love he holds in his hands.
xx
I wasn’t 100% sold on getting an iPad till I saw this. Apple should send you commission :-)
Haha I hope they do.
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There were a lot of good guesses over at Flickr about how I put this together. No, they’re not resting on an iPad — that would work too except for all the fingerprints. This was a highly reflective black jewelry box, and behind it for the color and texture was the bride’s pink Netbook. I had fun with it when the bride’s mother walked in and said "Look at that! He’s using the computer!"
so awesome! one of my all time fav ring shots! way to work your magic!
What a great idea! I’m going to have to try this with my pink laptop.
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I got my start in photojournalism and spent years working for Columbia University as a photographer, doing mostly documentary work, so I’m glad to intersperse my wedding work with institutional clients, and particularly my undergraduate alma mater and frequent client Fordham University. And there’s nothing more fun in the corporate photography world than being handed a broad assignment with “tell a good story.” So I had a great time covering the recent “Take Your Sons and Daughters to Work Day.” Fordham did their best to make this a great experience for the kids while keeping the cogs of the university turning, with tours and events all over campus to show them different facets of Fordham professional life. Here is a sample of the day:
Students wander the halls of WFUV, Fordham’s acclaimed radio station
Students, with new t-shirts, watch a chemistry demonstration
Goggles upon glasses.
A student makes sure his work is right as they test acids versus bases.
Rapt attention.
Students make their own races during the roll call.
Doing their best to put themselves in sugar shock at a “Make Your Own Cupcake” station
Students race at the ROTC demonstration
Reporting for duty
These. Are. Awesome. (the last one is my favorite)
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ryan Brenizer. Ryan Brenizer said: ON THE BLOG: Photos of the Day: Take Your Sons and Daughters to Work @ Fordham U http://bit.ly/ccwXD7 [...]
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From a session yesterday with Jaime and Phil. Methoded, 11 images with the 50mm f/1.2.
I love it! Makes me miss NY even more! Since it’s a 50mm 1.2, I’m guessing you went with Canon for this one?
Man, that is a great methoded shot Ryan. Bokehlicious!
heck yes! love it! did any security guards give you trouble? knowing you–i am sure you worked this out in 3 seconds flat. ;-)
Showoff ;-) LOL!!!!
No security guards, since I didn’t use a tripod, and I banged it out in about five seconds.
@Cato: I used the Nikon 50mm f/1.2 AIS.
I always love getting calls from Preeti, the head coordinator at Spotlight Style, because I know it will be an over-the-top gorgeous, meticulously planned South Asian wedding, with all the colors and fun and detailed ceremonies that entails. But this time, the bride Preeti’s own sister, so I knew it would be as gorgeous and wild a wedding as I had ever seen. And boy was it.
Like so many great love stories, Sameepa and Beeren’s begins in the dentist’s office. She was his patient, and apparently he did a great job, because Sameepa has a killer smile.
Believe it or not, all of the photos below are from only one day of three. It was wonderful to get to know the family during the sangeet and the mehndi, as well as the first birthday of Sameepa’s nephew, all in the course of a week. By the time the wedding started, it felt like I was among friends as well as clients. The ceremony and reception were at espace, a fantastic event space that made a perfect canvas for Spotlight Style’s design skills and incredible floral arrangements. The ceremony was a traditional Hindu ceremony, which I always love to shoot because so many of the tiniest gestures have incredible meaning, from light touches to the materials used to a sharing of the first meal.
And then it was time to party. From the moment the music started to the end of the night, the huge dance floor was packed to capacity, and it got just a *bit* wild, as you’ll see below. Congratulations, you two, and thank you!
You are such a remarkable photographer, Ryan!
So so so so so GORGEOUS!!! Not just the decor, your coverage of it is AMAZING.
ryan- your work inspires. well played sir.
Wow, what a gorgeous wedding and couple. I LOVE the detail shots of her henna,hands, earrings, etc… Love the shot of the two dancing and the emotion in the mothers expression seen through her closed eyes.
Beautiful work as always Ryan! I love all the moments and details you’ve captured – I especially love the portrait of her in the car and the silhouette of them against pink. :)
Remarkable as always, Ryan.
Fantastic set Ryan. The colors are amazing and the Brenizer Method portrait is perfect. You caught so many great emotions and the storytelling throughout is fluid and captivating.
WOW! Amazing work as always – I really love the emotional moments you’ve captured. The crying, the laughing, the dancing, the love. You got it all beautifully :)
Amazing work – your skills are awe-inspiring, really enjoying looking through your work, I think you may just have picked up a new fan – wish I could access the EXIF data on these so that I can see what lenses you used.
Really amazing work, Ryan. Glad to be a part of this shoot with you. Looking forward to working together again soon! Best -Kevin
Hat’s off to you sir, excellent work again and again.
These are excellent, Ryan! I just love the emotion – both intimate and fun – that you captured.
Ryan, you Sir are killing it. Love the colors and moments, your images just pop!
Ryan!!! It blows my mind how with each post/wedding you get better & better. I think I need a CT scan to make sure I’m ok.
Your work is so inspirational. Simply stunning!
Beautiful work, Ryan. You always have such great, bold color in your work. I love the one of her looking out the car window, and the one of their silhouettes through the frosted glass.
These are awesssssommmme! Absolutely amazing! Love the 3rd shot looking up!
Incredible (colorful!) set of images.
wow. the colors are awesome. they all POP! great coverage!
color…gloooooorious color!
Amazing set, Ryan!I love the photo of their silhouette behind the glass doors. Very well done!
All of the above said. this is absolutely awesome. i especially love the image with their silhuette behind the glass door.
Wow, what wonderful reception lighting. You captured some wonderful candid moments splendidly. BRAVO!
Fantastic work, really well captured :)
Lovely photographs, great colours and contrast throughout, a visual feast. Thanks for sharing.
From some perspectives, I am a terrible businessman. I always approach my client offerings with “What would I want from a wedding photographer?” and often throw things in because I think they’re cool, for free. Photos want to be seen large. They want room to breathe, they want to run around on mountaintops and sing. So I decided to make my life a bit more interesting and design my post-wedding slideshows to be not just bigger, but HDTV compliant. And what a wedding to start with — the bigger-than-life multi-day Indian wedding of Sameepa and Beeren! See it here in 720p HD or see it smaller if it’s just too much of their awesomeness for your screen.
This is just awesomely amazing.
only 720p? why’d I get this stupid 1080p laptop?
looks great!
Looks nice on my giant computer :) What slideshow program are you using?
The client version is 1080p, but not for web streaming.
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Ryan, as always…totally FABULOUS work!!! Totally love all of those shots and the slideshow HD is fantastic…Love the choice of music.
Ryan, honestly, you rock. These are such vibrant, colourful, creative and fun photos. You really do capture the emotion of the day so well. Awesome.
Loved the pictures, especially when the music burst into “signed, sealed, delivered” – Apt and fitting. This HD slideshow is a great idea, and I’m sure your clients will love it.
Almost cried at 1m30, so the song change is PERFECT too. such a cute wedding!
These pictures are beautiful! Awesome work!
That was pretty epic, Ryan.
He’s just excited because he knows that here, tomorrow, will be the retelling of Sameepa and Bareen’s amazing wedding.
Love it Ryan, what lens did you use? 24mm?
Holy Moly! I love the spread arms.. like he is going to fly away…
Awesome
Yup, 24mm f/1.4.
Thanks!
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Lynn Michelle - Love ya Ryan :)
craig john - Lynn’s my fave. ….Wait! What?
Geoff - I love how you get the same consistent look with your work Ryan.
..and thanks for turning me on to Lynn’s work the last time you shot her a few months ago. Good stuff!