http://www.planetneil.com/tangents photography by Neil van Niekerk Sat, 04 Jul 2009 05:28:53 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en [ click on photo to see a larger image ] The comments I've had to the recent addition of video clips showing a glimpse of how I work, I thought I'd show the progression of an idea.  Not just how the actual image was made, but how the idea progressed. The photo above ... http://www.planetneil.com/tangents/2009/07/03/the-progression-of-an-idea/ Flashy Photo Sessions in NYC 06-19 from Neil van Niekerk on Vimeo. [ if the video is choppy, let the clip buffer completely first, or turn off HD ] On Friday June 19th, (along with my assistant, the-other-Neil), I met up with 3 models in New York for a photo session with each.  ... http://www.planetneil.com/tangents/2009/06/30/3-nyc-photo-sessions/ The workshop dates for the rest of 2009: The NJ / NYC workshop coming up shortly on July 13th.    sold out! The UK / Ireland workshop dates in July are also coming up fast.   Both the Brighton and Birmingham workshops are now sold out. The workshop in Cork, Ireland on Sunday, Aug 02, is ... http://www.planetneil.com/tangents/2009/06/30/workshop-schedule-2009/ As first in an ongoing series about overpowering the sun with flash, this photograph was from a session with Sarah and her husband, Mark.  The sunlight on Coney Island was pretty harsh, and I needed to / wanted to clean up the sun's harsh shadows with flash. Since the Sunny 16 rule ... http://www.planetneil.com/tangents/2009/06/29/overpowering-the-sun-models-sarah-mark/ At a recent wedding the time we had for the formal photographs were compressed, and we had to come up with a variety of romantic portraits and formal photos.  This time I decided I want to do them only using video lights.  The wysiwygnature of lighting a subject with video ... http://www.planetneil.com/tangents/2009/06/26/video-light-for-wedding-formals/ In reply to some questions on using video light for portraits, here are some images of Sasha, a model who brought an entirely appropriate sense of the dramatic to the photo session.  With vintage clothing and hats, the video lights appeared a good choice for lighting.  For this session, I had ... http://www.planetneil.com/tangents/2009/06/24/using-video-light-model-sasha-l/ I never paid much attention to the physics and shape of the pulse of flash, or how the pulse of light is shaped, but after reading up on how the new PocketWizards work, I was curious .. and played around with the Q-flash. And to my surprise, I found I was able ... http://www.planetneil.com/tangents/2009/06/23/going-higher-than-max-sync/ Aleona - lit with an off-camera Q-flash T5D-R, using Quantum's wireless system, and a 24x32 softbox on a lightstand.  1/1000th @ f4 @ 200 ISO. More details and possibly a short video clip to follow .. http://www.planetneil.com/tangents/2009/06/20/aleona-model/ NYC photo shoot - Linda & Gary 06-14 from Neil van Niekerk on Vimeo. [ if the video is choppy, let the clip buffer completely first, or turn off HD ] As a glimpse of how I work with couples during a photo shoot, here is a video clip of a recent session.  Linda and ... http://www.planetneil.com/tangents/2009/06/16/nyc-photo-session-linda-gary/ Another photograph from the recent NYC photo shootout.  We were a group of photographers working with Lea during this part of the afternoon.  There are several parts in what makes an image successful - the subject, the setting, lighting and then the post-processing.  There are limitations in working as a group with ... http://www.planetneil.com/tangents/2009/06/14/nyc-photo-shootout-redux/