I’ve have decided to finally host my own blog on my own servers, please update your bookmarks/rss feeds/googleviewer/etc to find me at Spencer Fu Photography’s new location. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the new blog layout and design! Thanks for following me all these years on this blog and I hope that you’ll come by and join me at the new blog location. See you around!
-Spencer
Introduction:
Ashley and I met late last year and it has taken almost four long months for our schedules to allow us to photograph together. Ashley is a recent graduate looking to possibly pursue a career in the dramatic arts. She contacted me to shoot a couple recent headshots of her before heading back home to Toronto.
Photos:
Introduction:
After our short initial meeting and mini-engagement shoot last week I had scheduled Lindsay and Scott in for another engagement shoot to get some more cute photos of the two for a possible engagement guestbook. In a span of one week the weather had changed from bright, warm, and sunny back to the cold, windy, winter weather we are used to in Southern Ontario! Regardless we all had a good time shooting in the snow. I’m starting to think that snow adds a unique texture to all the images that you don’t find on a normal sunny day.
Technique:
The last time Lindsay, Scott, and I had shot together I had used flare to play around with the images and give a unique twist on the storytelling. On a snowy day the clouds block out most of the sun and you’re left with a giant softbox in the air. With snow, especially while it is still falling from the sky, it is good to find backgrounds that bring out the snowfall. For example shooting the couple against the bright sky is not so good as the white snow gets lost in the white sky. Try positioning them in front of a dark buildings where the dark red bricks bring out a nice contrast between the light white snow. Other ways you can make the snow pop is using green evergreen trees as they pick up snow nicely and again offer a bright contrast to the snow.
Photos:
Introduction:
I was introduced to Lindsay and Scott by Heather another awesome photographer. The weather in Kingston Ontario is finally getting warmer and looking much more like summer and while shooting this session I had the “sunny summer” theme in my mind. After meeting up with them over coffee late in the afternoon and hearing more about their wedding details we really didn’t have much time to take these photos. Luckily we had a little bit of sun left that was able to work it’s magic!
Technique:
The idea behind this shoot was a “sunny summer”. So I tried to incorporate as much of the setting sun as possible. Obviously shooting directly into the sun introduces tons of problems with flare, contrast, sharpness, and metering issues. But as long as you try to meter for the couples skin tones and are comfortable playing with the Curves tool in Photoshop to fix contrast you’re good to go! A wonderful way to use the sun is to position it directly behind the couple and use the golden sunlight as a back/hairlight to outline the couple from the background. Sometimes you might need a reflector or a flash attached to your camera fired at low power to add some fill light in case the flare is too great! Also don’t worry too much about getting bad photos when shooting like this as Photoshop makes a HUGE difference!
Photos:
Here is a photo showing the post processing I use to deal with lens flare from the sun!
Spencer Fu Photography 