Actors, headshots and bonus photos

This week I had the great pleasure of photographing Sam Cassella. He’s a young chap who’s in the middle of his university career where’s he’s studying drama. Sam’s no fools and has realised that to make it as an actor requires experience and one way to achieve that is to become an “extra”.

That’s where I come in. One thing that every aspiring actor or actress needs is a decent head shot for their résumé. By and large these tend to be fairly routine images. From experience I know that a decent head shot has a few key ingredients.

• Be a fair representation of the individual rather then an arty portrait.

• Be black and white (which seems rather odd in these digital days)

• Be taken against a plain background.

In other words something like this…

Ok, lets be honest that wasn’t exactly the most difficult portrait to light and take, in fact any half decent photographer can take a picture like this the hard part is getting the sitter to relax.

So with a decent headshot in the bag of the casting directors, I had plenty of time to take the kind of pictures that I like. When it comes to portraits most of my clients want a pure white background, but for male portraits I tend to shot against a black or great background and use light that has a harder edge.

Sam was an amazingly easy to photograph. He arrived at my studio with a range of clothes from very casual to rather smart. He even bought his “trade mark” hat.

I’ve always had a problem with hats in the studio. Hats with brims cause shadows. Hats with big brims cause big shadows which go right across the eyes and are very difficult to fill. Sam loved his hat and wanted it in the pictures.

After a bit of head scratching and time adjusting the lights, I got some of the best shots of the session.

15 minute photo challenge - Mount Etna - Week 68

Mount Etna on the Italian island of Sicily provided me with a challenging photo location. It's a stunning location, but getting that to transfer into great photos is no easy matter. It's a trap many of us photographers fall in to. It's so easy to get swept up in the excitment of a new location and all thoughts of basic photographic principles go out the window.

The trick is to keep a sharp look out for the great photos and keep thinking photo thoughts.

Once you think like a photographer you'll find amazing photos will appear in front of you.

To view the finished photos go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/photogavin/sets/72157621881384366

How to take infrared photos with a digital camera - Week 67

Infrared Photography is a unique and original to capture amazing black and white images.In this "how to" video, photography expert Gavin Hoey http://www.gavtrain.com goes into the woods to take infrared images using a digital camera fitted with a R72 infrared filter.

Be sure to check out part two when Gavin takes you through the Photoshop side of infrared photography.

How to process infrared digital images in Photoshop- Week 67

Having taken infrared digital images you'll need to process them to extract the best from them.In part two of this infrared tutorial, Photoshop expert Gavin Hoey http://www.gavtrain.com takes you through the essential steps to create a mono masterpiece

How to enhance texture in RAW photos - Week 66

Following on from the previous video http://gavtrain.blogspot.com/2009/08/15-minute-photo-challange-balcome.html I had a large number of emails asking did the final photos have any post processing and if so what did I do.

Firstly ALL the images in the video had some photoshop applied, but to be honest every picture I take has a touch of photoshop applied. I'm not alone here. I know of Very few photographers who press the shutter and print the results. Cropping, Levels and sharpening are all par for the course.

In this case the work was limited to a few tweaks in Adobe Camera RAW and the total time to work through all the images was around 30 minutes.

So what's my secret? The answer is RAW Presets. As you'll see towards the end of the video. If I find a good RAW technique I'll turn it into a preset. That way I can process and image in click of a button.

If you've never used RAW before (and if you camera has it) may be this video will convince you to see the light.

15 minute Photo Challange - Balcombe Viaduct - Week 65

One location, One lens and only 15 minutes to take the photos. Find out what digital photography expert Gavin Hoey http://www.gavtrain.com/ found to photograph in this video

View the images on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/photogavin/sets/72157621881384366/

Photograph and create a joiner with Photoshop CS4 - Week 64

There are many ways to create a photocollage or joiner, but none are as satisfying as phototgraphing a bunch of images and joining them in Photoshop.

Digital expert Gavin Hoey http://www.gavtrain.com demonstrates the new feature of Photoshop CS4 which joins the images together is seconds.