Sundeep Sitara’s Blog

In this blog post I look at photographing portraits and offer some advice on how to get good results.

1. Personality of the client. A good portrait photograph should reflect the personality of the client, their life, or their interests. It’s crucial to keep this factor in mind above all else. Your portrait photographs should be a window into your client’s life. You need to have a genuine curiosity about people you have never met; you need to look for the finer details that fill out their lives. The photo to the right is of the actress and model, Kelly Brook. It’s far removed from the normal glamour shots you see of her - it’s more girl-next-door, which was exactly what we were looking for.

2. How to get to know your subject - and get them to relax! Before the shoot starts, I spend 20 about minutes talking with my client, breaking the ice and building rapport, as we discuss what sort of photographs we hope to get out of the photo shoot, and perhaps practicalities such as location and lighting, as appropriate. Once you start taking photos your client will often be nervous and you should allow for this. Giving your client something to do, say, getting him or her to use an object they work with or use regularly is a good way of getting them to relax, and it shows their personality in action - and it is always better than getting them to strike a pose, which often just makes clients uncomfortable. I chat while taking photos and try to have fun with the client since this brings out the character I am trying to capture. The photo to the left is of a yoga instructor getting into a yoga pose.

3. Think about style. The style of photographs you take for a particular portraiture session is one of the ways you can show the personality of the subject. Depending on who you are photographying, you could take classy, formal, light hearted and relaxed, contemporary, candid or animated photos - your freedom in tone and style is unfettered, but you should tune style to match the your client’s personality. In this way, style is one of the windows into your client’s world. Ask your client what sort of style of photograph they have in mind, and be prepared to make suggestions, but be flexible. Your intuition is there to help you, so listen to it.

4. Location, lighting and background.

a) A studio is a great place for taking portraits because the photographer has such control over background, mood and the angle at which light will strike the client. However, do not think that you need to have a permanent studio. I took the shot to the right in the corner of my friends front room. A really good studio will have great natural lighting, of which you can take full advantage. In addition, you can set up your own studio lights. You can put lights on stands or have them hang from the ceiling. You can set up umbrellas and other diffusion equipment. You’ll find that the most flattering light is soft, off-camera light. Soft boxes also give good results. Experiment with light banks, one on either side of the camera; these will effectively rule out shadows. Check out the portable flash kits in my on-line shop. You really do not need much more than a couple of lights, light stands and umbrellas. Allow for about 20 minutes to set them up.

b) The subject’s own home will often have good light near a window, and of course setting the subject in their own home, places them in their natural environment - a place which reflects their personality. Try placing the client near a large window (often north facing is best) and then experiment with white reflecting card. If you do opt for this option, make sure you experiment with a tripod because you will have to use lower shutter speeds, which will make you vulnerable to camera shake.

c) Portraits taken outdoors offer natural light - full sun light, or soft light in the shade of trees or in the shadows of buildings - and variety in backgrounds. Hard sunlight is best avoided since it can give unkind shadows on faces. Waiting for the soft golden light of late after noon/early evening will gift you the best light of the day. If you do take photos on a sunny day, use a reflector, or flash, to fill in shadows underneath the eyes.

5. Don’t get too close, too soon. Starting with close up shots often makes clients nervous. Instead, I set a longer focal length, or I set a wide focal length and then step back a bit to show the subject within the environment we have chosen.

6. Click and show. Showing the subject your first few good photos is the great ice breaker at the start of the shoot; it give the client confidence since he or she can see how good they look. This also helps to show the client what you are attempting to achieve with the photos.

7. Panning for gold. Don’t feel bad if you click off dozens of shots and only find a few good ones out of the batch. You might find that you take 50 images and only get one that gives you what you are looking for. As you grow in experience, you’ll have a clearer vision of what you are looking for, and you’ll be more efficient at finding the sweet spot.

8. Getting technical. Experiment with low ISO settings, prime (as opposed to zoom) lenses, and with a tripod. Playing around with these three factors will give open your portrait photography up to new potential. A tip if you don’t have control over your background is to use a long, but fast lens, say a 300mm 2.8 lens, because fast telephoto lenses don’t have much depth of field, which means that your client’s nose and eyes will come up sharp, but the background - things that could distract the viewer’s focus - will end up blurred.

9. Your SLR body. You don’t need to have a top of the range digital SLR - a mid range will do to start off with. However, once you start to find your feet and are looking for regular work, invest in a decent SLR body. I use a Canon 5D - it does everything I ask of it. Check out the shop on this site, and read the reviews of the various products on offer.

I hope you find this blog post helpful. If you do, feel free to comment on it, and please consider bookmarking it on your favourite social bookmarking site. There’s a link below to a handy site, Social Marker, which allows you to make quick and easy bookmarking entries (it populates the entry for you).

This blog post contains some pointers for photographing architecture. By architecture I mean anything that has been designed and built by humans. This could be a Royal Palace, a mud hut, a roof, or a bridge - any static construction.

1. Take your time. The great advantage of photographing architecture is that the subject does not move. This means that you have plenty of time to place yourself and to consider the various factors that will, if you get them right, give you a great photograph. Take a tripod with you; have fun, experiment - you’ll often be surprised at the results you get.

2. Form and perspective, composition and lighting. You need to give these considerations a lot of thought. Look for interesting angles, get up close, look for interesting details - things the most people don’t look at as they walk by the subject architecture. It is here that the architectural beauty is often found, in features or perspectives that the architect may not have imagined would get much attention.

3. Don’t forget the human factor. Architectural photography looks so much better with a humanising element; people walking in, out and around buildings or working in them. I took this photo of the Millennium Bridge (right) using a tripod, and I set a long exposure. The people appear as ghosts on this very modern bridge - it’s a nice combination, sort of urban-spiritual.

4. Think carefully about the time of day you take photograph. Dusk shots can give deep blue skies, balanced by lights from buildings, and dusk is ‘going home time’ so there are plenty of opportunities to get people in the photos. Night photos on a tripod with a long exposure give great results.

5. Think wide. Wide angle lenses give a large field of view and are great for capturing unusual spatial effects up close.

6. Think extreme. Extreme angles can give parallel lines strong convergence, and these feature a lot in my architecture & interiors gallery.

7. Repeating patterns. Compositions with repeating patterns (see Taj Hotel’s roof, left) or some form of symmetry often work well.

8. Experiment with a long lens. A long lens can give a zoom effect so that the viewer of the photo appears to be hovering in front of detail that might be quite high up a building (and normally only seen from below as compressed).

I hope you find this blog post helpful. If you do, feel free to comment on it, and please consider bookmarking it on your favourite social bookmarking site. There’s a link below to a handy site, Social Marker, which allows you to make quick and easy bookmarking entries (it populates the entry for you).

Hi,

Photographing sporting events can be a real challenge. In this blog post I look at how to photograph sporting events and at the commercial side of sports photography.

1. Hone your technique at easy access venues. Local football pitches - e.g. for non-league action - are great for this. You just turn up and snap away. By doing this you’ll be able to build up a portfolio of images which you can show to editors later on when you are trying to get work. Aim to build a collection of photos from various events - e.g. rugby, tennis, rowing, athletics - regardless of your personal interest in the sport.

2. Photography Equipment: You don’t need to have a 400mm f/2.8 if you are photographing your local football team, but once you get onto bigger events your equipment will have to scale up too. I shot Kabaddi wrestling (Indian wrestling) using a 70-200mm which was exciting because I had to get really close to the action (I nearly got flattened!) but often you won’t be able to get so close so a longer lens will be essential. Go onto professional photographer’s forums (a good one I use is http://photo.net/community/) and ask what equipment the pros use and what sort of budget you’ll need for what you want to do. This should give you up-to-date information. Do keep in mind that camera resolution is less important with sports photography than it is with other photography areas. More pixels will not necessarily give you betters photos. Speed and auto-focus are crucial. A good image stabliser in your lens will also help produce better shots. Finally, when you are ready to buy, check out the shop on this site www.sundeepsitara.co.uk/store.htm

3. Framing: take a good look at the photographs you see on the sports pages of newspapers and you’ll see that the framing is tight - focusing close in on the action.

4. Background: similarly, you’ll notice that an ideal background is a) uncluttered and b) out of focus, so that the sporting action is the only thing that draws the eye.

5. Get to know the sport: get to know the rules of the sport you are photographing, and the patterns of play. Know the key people involved and keep an eye on them, so that when they do something spectacular, you are ready to capture it on your camera. Good sports photographers are like spiders - they have an almost pre-cognitive sense of what is going to happen before it happens. There is a saying in photography, ‘If you have seen the action, you have missed the chance to photograph it.’ So, be ready with your camera and anticipate what will happen and be ready to photograph it.

6. Marketing: when you start out be prepared to give freebies and complementary photos. Free often open doors to events, and is a good way to to say thanks after events.

7. Income: Taking football matches as an example, local papers might give you say, £30-40 for a picture of a non-league game, but you might expect say, around £100 for a league game. The higher up the leagues you go, the greater the rewards but the tougher the competition.

I hope you find this blog post helpful. If you do, feel free to comment on it, and please consider bookmarking it on your favourite social bookmarking site. There’s a link below to a handy site, Social Marker, which allows you to make quick and easy bookmarking entries (it populates the entry for you).

Hi,

Here are 4 ways to reduce camera shake when taking photographs:

1. Use a tripod. This removes both lateral and vertical camera shake when you take a photograph. However, you sacrifice mobility, and you need space to place the tripod. Tripods can be awkward and are not appropriate for all photography situations, e.g. events where you need to move around a lot when you are taking photos, or when you are are in a crowd.

2. Use a mono-pod. This provides less stability than a tripod, having only one leg and not three, and it only really protects against vertical camera shake, but mono-pods are great for situations where you might be in a crowd, e.g. when photographing sporting events.

3. Use a rope, long belt, or long strap. Hook the rope or strap under your feet and then hold the ends in either hand as you hold the camera. By applying upward pressure, stretching the rope or strap, you effectively lock the camera into a vertical position, allowing you to then take the photograph with much less vertical camera shake.

4. Hold your breath when you take the photo. The reason for doing this is that even the act of breathing will cause camera shake. However, holding your breath as you click the shutter and take your photograph will reduce the amount of camera shake you experience.

I hope you find this blog post helpful. If you do, feel free to comment on it, and please consider bookmarking it on your favourite social bookmarking site. There’s a link below to a handy site, Social Marker, which allows you to make quick and easy bookmarking entries (it populates the entry for you).

Hi,

With the wonders of modern technology I have managed to link my blog with facebook.

You can now follow my http://www.sundeepsitara.co.uk/blog posts by logging on to my facebook account and then clicking on the flog blog tab on the left hand column.

Regards

Sundeep

Hi from beautiful Galway.

Wow - what a week at the Galway Film Fleadh 2008!

Galway is lovely and I have seen some great screenings and made some new contacts.

The weather has not been that great, so taking photographs and making them look good (against an overcast sky) has been a challenge.

Unfortunatly, I can’t upload photographs of Galway - I tried in the local internet cafe but it’s not happening. No matter, I will upload some when I get back to London after the weekend.

Bye for now.

Sundeep

Hi Everyone,

A number of you have been e-mailing about photography workshops.

I’m aiming to give you more information on this when I return from Galway, Ireland.

So cheep checking the blog and I’ll post new info for you when I have some.

Happy snapping

Sundeep

Hi everyone,

I arrived yesterday for the Film Festival here in lovely Galway, Ireland.

The Galway Film Fleadh 2008 is on all week and I’ll be here taking photos, networking, and enjoying the great films on show. I’ll update the blog when I get a moment, so watch this space.

Check out the official website http://www.galwayfilmfleadh.com/

Catch you later.

Love

Sandi

Hi everyone,

This is my first post on my new blog!

I’ll be updating the blog with all my latest new, photography tips, workshop news, inks to events and so much more stuff that I have not got round the thinking about yet.

You’ll also be able to post comments on the blog. and if you have any suggestions for features you would like to see on my blog then let me know. I’ll do my best to accommodate them.

Catch you later.

Love

Sandi