Professional Corporate Headshots: Mike Varney Physiotheraphy

Just before Christmas, I had the pleasure of visiting the lovely people at Mike Varney Physiotherapy at their superbly appointed practice in Harlow, Essex. Amongst other things they had asked me to create some corporate headshots of their staff.

A scout around the practice showed me a suitable out of the way place to set up, and so at the end of a corridor, sandwiched between the Sports Hall and the Fire Exit, I set up my lights ready for my subjects.

I spent between five and ten minutes with each member of Mike's team, running through some simple variations on poses and taking maybe 20-30 shots of each of them. These were returned to the practice the next day, and I invited them to select 2-3 shots each for final retouching.

I completed the retouch the week after Christmas, delivering them on DVD in a range of resolutions, and sending a copy to the excellent Dean Vale, who manages their website.

The practice made their final selection and Dean has now uploaded these to their website.




Take a closer look here and see how a consistently exposed, professionally shot and finished headshot can help lift your website, and your personal profile above the mundane.

Because Mike and his team have my images on a DVD they can also use the images for any other promotional purposes - pay once, use many times - in a shrinking economy that's the kind of offer that no one can afford to ignore.

North London Photographer: Tips from a Professional #3 - Photographing Pets & Animals

In the third of my occasional series of hints and tips, I look at a typical subject for everyday shooting; family pets and other animals.

Like the rest of this series, I will concentrate on technique. I firmly believe that good photography is a function of good technique & emotional contact with the subject and not solely the result of the most expensive equipment or the most up to date software.

So, with the weather set fair, why not put some of these tips into action and grab some great shots of the four legged friends of your family.

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Many of these tips are equally important when photographing humans & that is certainly the case for my first piece of advice:

1. FILL THE FRAME.

Whilst you may need to be a bit careful when photographing crocodiles or tigers, most domestic animals are really quite friendly. There really is no excuse not to have your subject dominating the frame. Get in close for impact!



2. DON'T BLAST WITH FLASH.

Unlike humans, Dogs & Cat's don't suffer with "red eye" where the light from a camera's flashgun reflects back to the camera as a glowing, demonic red, but they do suffer with "green eye". Worse still, many have silky, shiny fur which will also badly reflect the light from a camera flash. Rather than shooting indoors or at night, try and capture your pet outdoors in normal daylight. Don't pick the middle of the day when the light is overhead and strong, but morning or evening, or even an overcast day will help you best.

This way, the flash use will be at a mimimum (remembering my advice about "fill flash" here), the shine and "green eye" will be controlled, and your photograph will be more natural and much more pleasing.



3. GET DOWN TO THEIR LEVEL.

Shooting your pet whilst you stand up will mean that you're looking down on them. Unless (like in the example below) you are looking to emphasise their diminuative stature, then you should try and shoot from their eye level. See the world from their perspective and you'll get a more natural portrait of your animal.



4. FOCUS ON THE EYES.

Every good portrait must have the eyes in focus. This is true of humans or animals. An added complexity of many animals over humans is the length of their snouts.

Autofocus cameras generally try to focus on the closest thing to the lens. In the case of dogs, horses or here donkeys! their long faces mean that this is often the tip of the nose.



To avoid this you need to learn the focus/recompose trick. When looking through the viewfinder, or on the back screen of your camera, the points of focus are generally shown as small boxes or crosses. When the camera focuses, these light up in red. If this is focussing on the snout then hold the focus point (cross or box) over the animals eyes. Half press down the shutter. This will "lock" the focus at that distance. You can then "recompose" the picture by slightly moving the camera so that it is framed as you wish. Without lifting your finger, fully press the shutter and the picture will be taken, the eyes will be in focus, and the snout pleasantly blurred.



(See here for a more detailed explanation of this trick)

5. CONSIDER THE BACKGROUND

Try and photograph your pets against a background that is complimentary to their colouring. Your eyes should be drawn to the pet itself, and bright spots in the background or similar will distract the viewer away from the pet.

In the example below, with the black dog, the eyes are drawn to the video recorder in the background and away from the animal itself. The complimentary, evenly coloured background in the image of the blue marl collie contains nothing to distract from her friendly face.



7. CAPTURE THEM BEHAVING LIKE ANIMALS.

If you ask your children to sit still, bolt upright and force a grin, you'll get some horribly staid, obviously posed, almost starched shots. The same is true for portraits of your pet. If you want to capture an image that really says something about the animal, then why not try and catch it "in action". Photograph it doing what it loves to do. Running, chasing a ball, stalking it's toys are all examples of perfect opportunities for greating great memories. Remember you can take as many shots as you like, delete all the duff ones and keep the one or two that really do work. These are the pictures that will most make you smile when you look back in years to come.



I hope that you've found these helpful. Put these tips into practice and you'll be surprised at how much they can improve your photography. Use the comments below to drop me a message linking to any photographs you take that follow these tips. I'd love to see them.

Keep snapping!

All the best.

Dan

North London Photographer: Tips from a Professional #2 – Improving your everyday shots.

So, you've read my last blog entry and are suitably inspired to go out and take some photos. You’ve purchased your beautiful shiny camera (or dusted down the old one that you’ve kept in a drawer). The next question is how can you get better pictures from it?

There’s a variety of advice and wisdom available on the net as to how to improve your photography, none of which are worth listening to until you have the basics down pat. Today’s post considers these basics:



Pretty much every compact digital these days has a big display on the back. It shows in very pretty colours what the camera can see but encourages you to hold the camera at arms length so that you can see through it.

Holding it like this means that you are much more likely to move the camera slightly when taking the shot.



The more traditional method of pressing a camera’s eye piece against your face makes for a much more steady hold. It’s like using a tripod with three legs against one with only two!

If your camera has an “old fashioned” viewfinder, then use it! It might not be so “sexy” but it will help you achieve slightly more sharpness, critical to turning your picture into one you’ll want to keep.



Cameras work by gathering enough light through the lens to make a bright picture. Whenever there is less light around (at night, on gloomy days etc) then the camera will keep the shutter open for longer. This means that you need to hold the camera even more steadily in these conditions. How can you do this?

Firstly – look at your stance. Stand straight, open your feet slightly more than shoulder wide (or kneel on one knee). Lock your body.

Now – make sure that you’re holding the camera correctly, breathe out slowly – hold your breath for a split second and whilst holding it, squeeze the shutter slowly (don’t jab it) and release it slowly (then don’t forget to breathe again!)

Step 1 complete then, your photograph is sharp.

Next – create more impact with your pictures by using one of the two zooms you are equipped with.

Pretty much every compact these days has a decent zoom. As I mentioned previously, ignore the digital zoom (which tries to invent detail that the camera doesn’t actually capture), but use one of the two others at your disposal. You can use the camera’s optical zoom or how about employing your own “foot zoom” (walk closer to the subject you are photographing!)

Getting closer to who you are photographing so that they fill the frame means that you’ll create a connection with the subject and makes for a photograph with much more oomph!



I’ve talked about low light and slow shutter speeds, but what should you do when the sun is out and the light is bright?

This is exactly the kind of situation where your flash can come to your aid. It seems counter-intuitive to use a flash in bright sunlight but consider this. The sun is an (at least occasionally here in the UK) extremely harsh source of light. It’s also very high in the sky. If you take a picture of someone in bright sunlight then you risk very harsh shadows. These often show up worse in someones eyes when the eyebrow’s shade the sun’s light from the eyes themselves – we call this “panda eyes”.

Switch your camera’s flash on (use the “fill flash” option if the camera has it) and the flash will fill in some of the missing light and give you a much more appealing result.



You can also improve your photography on sunny days by making sure that the sun is behind the people you photograph. So long as you are careful not to have the sun “in shot” (which will cause flare and sunspots) then it will provide an attractive halo around the subjects head and again, you can use fill-flash to brighten up peoples faces.



Above all, digital photography makes it exceptionally easy to practice – with the cameras display giving you instant feedback. Learn these principles, know your camera and I guarantee you will produce more compelling pictures far more often than you did before.

Check back soon for the next in my series of “Tips from a professional photographer” and watch your photography take off!