Nomadic Vision

We recently did a shoot for Flawless Moves, one of the world’s top urban dance groups. The images are going to be used as promo images for a new movie they are starring in (to be released in May 2010). This is the second time we have worked with Flawless and both times we’ve been really impressed with their professionalism and their enthusiasm for photography. They are fantastic to work with.

Although this shoot had very little to do with travel photography, it did make me think quite a bit about lighting for travel photography. For commercial shoots, I’ve always obsessed about lighting, dragging heavy equipment all over London. When traveling however, carrying heavy equipment is never fun, so I tend to use either a single flash gun in a soft box or available light.

Whilst Tina was busy doing the main shoot, I thought I would take some snapshots to pass time. I noticed that the window light looked quite good on the members waiting for the main shoot, so I shot a few portraits of each member using just window light (with some slight fill from the ceiling light).

Take some time to compare the results below…

Technically, the shots from the main shoot are far superior. They are pin sharp (F11), hold a lot of dynamic range and are pretty much noise free (ISO 200). The window light shots border on acceptable sharpness (F2.8), have very little dynamic range and are quite noisy (ISO 800). Additionally, the window light images have been converted to black and white because of the colour difference between the window light and ceiling light (blue and orange). Whilst the difference creates an interesting effect, it seems to take away from the character portraits, which the black and white conversion does not.

Aesthetically, I think the window light pictures look best. They have an informal, natural look which I think draws attention to the subject, rather than the photograph. The artificially lit images have a more processed, polished look which seems to makes less of a connection with the subject.

I’ve come to the following conclusions about lighting:

Strobe lighting is great for…

• Controlling  lighting conditions.
• Controlling the look (i.e. you can determine light colour, direction, quality and intensity).
• Creating effects.
• Creating high quality, printable images.

Minimal (natural) lighting is great for…

• Capturing candid, unforced pictures (have you ever tried posing with massive soft boxes staring back at you).
• Unexpected looks – because you can’t control the lighting, you are forced to adapt to what you can get, often with surprising results.
• Ease of use – natural light requires no equipment.

Regarding the pictures presented – they were taken at the same location at the same time. IMO, I prefer the black and white portraits. I am very interested in your opinions.

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