Posted by Low Tek: 
Has anyone notice how some photographers use the same backgrounds over and over?

Guilty, but I am getting another one soon...

Posted by Udo R Photography: 

Posted by Low Tek: 
Has anyone notice how some photographers use the same backgrounds over and over?

Guilty, but I am getting another one soon...

No you're not. You actually manage to go outside with your camera and lighting and take fantastic shots. =]

Posted by Low Tek: 

Posted by Udo R Photography: 

Posted by Low Tek: 
Has anyone notice how some photographers use the same backgrounds over and over?

Guilty, but I am getting another one soon...

No you're not. You actually manage to go outside with your camera and lighting and take fantastic shots. =]

Oh... thanks... but honestly, I am trying for quite a while to get another fabric, a white on for backdrop. I do have a collapsible botero backdrop, but that is only good for portraits.

Thanks for the compliment anyway.

Udo

Posted by Chris Hansen: 
Not sure who you're talking about but I agree with Xtreme, shooting either outside or on location is much more fun.  Outside cause it forces you to be alot more creative with everything.  From posing to lighting to everything.  Have to wait for the wind to die down, etc.  Much more fun and rewarding.

The Crazy Army Guy

I am really a location shooter, which I totally LOVE... I think working in a studio is a little bit more boring... I like environments, that's why my studio equipment is rather rudimentary.

Posted by Blanchard: 
heck..im a poor photographer who wishes he could afford studio lights, backgrounds, etc. right now my studio is outside, but i would love to be boring and shoot inside. just to try it out. 

Posted by Udo R Photography: 
I am really a location shooter, which I totally LOVE... I think working in a studio is a little bit more boring... I like environments, that's why my studio equipment is rather rudimentary. 

I feel your pains.  I'm just a lowly Army HR Manager.  I HAVE to shoot outdoors 90% of the time.  I finally got my first "studio shoot" at an open photo shoot.  It was nice having lighting available but I still prefer the out of doors.

Posted by Low Tek: 
Has anyone notice how some photographers use the same backgrounds over and over? I won't name names, but I saw this forum troll that not just once, but 1000+ times used the same background and composition so every photo in his portfolio and website looked exactly the same. It was the most redundant boring body of work I've ever seen.

Low

Yeah, I need to get some models some tires to sit on.  In swimwear yet.  Definitely won't be boring, huh?

I agree with the others who shoot outdoors.  I just don't do that.  If models want to shoot outdoors there are plenty of photographers who will do that with them.

Paul

Posted by * Visual Mindscapes *: 
I hate using the same background twice, but if I have to, I will.  I'll just make sure it looks different in all of the shots.

That reminds me of a port of a guy from Vegas.  He shot all of his models on bright white. 

I'm gelling mine now and trying to come up with a few other ideas.  It doesn't matter to the models since my pics are going to look different from any others they have.

I tried buying a black venetian blind a couple of days ago.  No luck but maybe before Thursday.

Paul

Posted by Paul Ferrara: 
Yeah, I need to get some models some tires to sit on.  In swimwear yet.  Definitely won't be boring, huh?

Now what you need is a swift kick to the nuts. What you could use is an elementary school lesson in grammar.

That was a nice effort, but try and find a snappy come back when your work shows the smallest iota of creativity or quality.

Did you ever manage to leave your position at K-Mart? I ask because I think I saw this hanging up at Wal-Mart the other day.

Posted by Paul Ferrara: 
Has anyone noticed how many photographers choose really ugly backgrounds.  I won't mention any names but I saw a forum regular who did that not just once, but three times.  Geez.

Yup. See it all the time. Bad 1970's-style mass-market lighitng and makeup styling, too.

It's usually done by photographers unfamiliar with any aspects of the fashion market, commercial modeling, or other genre of the modeling "industry", and/or catering to new models who don't know better either.

It's akin to using bad portrait lighting* and fake-looking retouching on what's supposedly modeling portfolio images. But commenting on it doesn't help, as the ones speaking loudest are often the most clueless.

* Even good traditional portrait lighting can have a negative impact on fashion and commercial images, but the Picture People/K-Mart flat copylighting approach is a much easier way to kill a fashion image than a "bad" background. (C.f. Avedon't white series.)

Posted by Low Tek: 
That was a nice effort, but try and find a snappy come back when your work shows the smallest iota of creativity or quality.

I don't know what your problem is but let's talk quality for a minute.  You call this quality?

Nothing like putting the subject's head in the shadows.

All of your pics look like they were taken with, yep, K-Mart style flat lighting.  I never worked for K-Mart but you must have learned to light like that somewhere.

And hey, you keep going back to my old portraits.  The new ones are at the top of the page.  And here's one of the newer ones.  See that lighting?



Paul

Posted by Low Tek:
Did you ever manage to leave your position at K-Mart? I ask because I think I saw this hanging up at Wal-Mart the other day.

Great - a pissing contest.  What's that saying about glass houses?

Posted by Sleepy Weasel: 
Great - a pissing contest.  What's that saying about glass houses?

Hmm... is it sometihng the President said?

"You know we have a saying down in Texas... fool me with a rock, you've fooled me twice... that is, if I'm in a glass house you can't fool me with glass. You know what I'm sayin'?"

- George W. Bush (paraphrased)

Posted by Paul Ferrara: 
And here's one of the newer ones.  See that lighting?

Barely, through the mucked up retouching. (The glowing eyes and teeth aren't helping the image, but they're not a lighting or background issue-that's just bad retouching.)

As for the lighting, what I can see doesn't look very good. There's virtually no dimensionality, which is usually important in portrait photography. Bluntly, even though there are shadows, it looks to me like flat K-Mart lighting. Certainly not high-quality (or even mid-level studio quality) portrait lighting, and bears little resemblance to commercial or fashion approaches or results.

Perhaps your clients want something that looks like that. Mine don't, not the portrait clients, not the models, and not the commercial clients. (And the photographers I retouch for would dump me in a minute if I tried to pawn off results like that.)

My lighting isn't great, but it's getting better, if more slowly than I'd prefer. But that didn't start happening until I started seeing.

Posted by Barone Studio: 
One of my best investments in equipment.

Well, that may be, but I didn't see it in any of the 20 photos in your port. Well, maybe one.

Posted by Barone Studio: 
...I recomend a product by Virtual Backgrounds called "The Scene Machine"....

What's it like?  I used a friend's machine that attaches to one of my lights.  The problem was I couldn't get it on the correct angle to get parallel lines.  Where do you put this thing?

Paul

Posted by Merle: 
Lighting BG's with gels works for variety in the studio.

I'm sort of doing that now.  My avatar was a brown background with a red gel.  No good for full-length shots though.  I also need to get it back further than I have it but I don't have the space to do that.

Paul

Posted by area291: 
It's the age old debate between portrait vs. model photography.  Some understand the difference and purpose, some don't.

I think we've really branched off here.  #1, I never claimed to be the greatest photographer on MM, and I don't.  My lighting is pretty good though, and it's not just me saying that.  As for posing, well, I have a lot to learn in that area.  As for creativity, I think you're born with it.  But the issue here was "flat lighting," as seconded by Mr. Connery, not creativity or posing capability.  If flat lighting equals K-Mart lighting, then most of his work fills the bill.  In reality, I think he just jumped in here and took LowTek's side of the argument.

Paul

Posted by Paul Ferrara: 
I don't know what your problem is but let's talk quality for a minute.  You call this quality?

Nothing like putting the subject's head in the shadows.

All of your pics look like they were taken with, yep, K-Mart style flat lighting.  I never worked for K-Mart but you must have learned to light like that somewhere.

And hey, you keep going back to my old portraits.  The new ones are at the top of the page.  And here's one of the newer ones.  See that lighting?

http://www.paulsportraits.com/images/041104-11.jpg

Paul

Sigh...

I give up. I've shown 10 year old how to appreciate art. Its just something with the internet and ignorance that go hand-in-hand.

See Paul, this is my point. A glaring point that you keep failing to realize. I'm going to explain myself to you calmly in hopes that you will listen, because while roasting your ignorance on these forums has been entertaining for the past week, its now getting old.

Your photography isn't bad in quality, I never said it was (with the exception of your fake HOT MODELS magazine covers, sorry man those are just terrible), its just redundantly boring. There are MANY sub-genres of photography. Portrait, Glamour, Nude, Artistic, etc etc. Each style uses its own trademark lighting/posing/composition techniques that allows it to be categorized as such. You concentrate on one aspect of that, portrait photography, and you have gotten good at it. Because of that, your entire body of work looks the same. You believe the same techniques you apply in your style should apply to all forms of photography, and the real world doesn't operate like that. There is more to photography than just lighting. There is composition, movement, color, shape, and form. You seem to think that lighting is the key to being a terrific photographer, and well, you're wrong.

Going by your ego-centric asinine comments here on the forums, your portfolio, and your website I can tell that you've never explored other forms. Therefore, you don't don't have a place to comment on other forms and styles of photography because you simply don't have the experience. You're so full of yourself that can't even go without posting an example of your own work to prove your point. The fact that newbie photographers take your rude comments as gospel terrifies me. And trust me, I don't need back up to prove my point. A lot of people came to same conclusion about your work, I just happened to be the first person to call you out on it.

You have this text book idea of what every photo should look like. Its like Da Vinci criticizing Van Gogh on his style of painting.

Actually, let me try to make it even simpler for you.

There many different flavors of ice cream out there. I enjoy Cookie Dough, Chocolate Mint, Cherry, and sometimes Oreo Cookie ice cream. You like Vanilla. To you, its the best flavor ever created. The difference between you and... well pretty much the rest of the community here, is that you're the only one trying to cram Vanilla down everyone's throats saying that its the only flavor in existence. Try another flavor Paul, come back here and post your findings. Who knows you might like it.

Posted by Low Tek: 
I give up. I've shown 10 year old how to appreciate art.

Well, that's good because if I wanted art lessons you'd be the last guy I'd come to.  If you think it takes creativity to put a vinyl dress on someone and then light her boobs instead of her face, we'll that's not art, that's just bad photography.

And I'm not an artist, I'm a photographer.  I take pictures that models can use in their portfolios.  That's what I do and that's why models shoot with me.  Your idea that my pictures look alike is silly.  The only common thread is that they're all taken in a studio.  No one looking at this page could have reached that conclusion.

http://www.paulsportraits.com/fashion/f … orites.htm

As far as me posting a picture or two in a message now and then, well I do it when it illustrates a point.  Get over it.

And take some lighting lessons.

Paul