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Each Monday, we’ll highlight one indie photographer whose body of work deserves special recognition.  Please enjoy their photography here, and make it a point to enjoy the rest of their work on their website.

With the Holiday season right around the corner, what better time to showcase photography that includes both food and people?   This week’s Indie Spotlight, Nicole Young, not only shoots the aforementioned styles, but stock photography as well.

Hailing from Seattle, Washington, Nicole’s photographic arsenal includes a Canon 5D Mark II, equipped with a 70-200mm 4/4L IS lens, which she uses for most of her work.  She likes to get in close, compressing her images, giving them a fairly shallow depth of field.  Most of her photography as of late is food, so her workflow is somewhat involved.  Since the images are shot for her stock portfolio, she must first decide on the subject what she wants to photograph.  Next on the grocery list (literally) is to purchase the ingredients, and finally cook, style, and prep the food for the shoot, which is done at her home studio. With camera and tripod ready to go, Nicole will shoot approximately 30 photographs, and take away 3-5 keepers on average.

She relies mostly on natural light for the food photography, however, the setup for photographing people is completely different.  A strobe is a must giving her subjects a “lifestyle” look, which ultimately produces a photograph that doesn’t appear to have been shot using artificial lighting.  There isn’t one particular setup or workflow when it comes to photographing people, so Nicole will work with whatever is available in terms of lighting, surroundings, and the people themselves.  It’s a very organic process, kind of a “go with the flow” type of shoot.

Concerning software, Nicole imports her photos into Adobe Lightroom using the DNG conversion feature. She has been using this process for the past year which helps her keep a good file structure without the added XMP side car files.  Next, she will select the “keepers” and apply basic adjustments like cropping, white balance, exposure, etc.  When she is happy with the basic edit in Lightroom, the next step is to export the files from Lightroom using the PSD extension so they are prepped and ready for editing in Photoshop.

After the photographs have made their way into Adobe Photoshop, Nicole uses a series of steps for final editing.   First, a new blank layer is created for cloning/healing.  Level adjustments come next using the brightness/contrast set to the luminosity blend mode.  The third step is another level adjustment layer for color adjustment using the color blend mode.   Step four, a new layer is added for color, which Nicole fondly refers to as the “color pop” effect.   Lastly, a sharpening layer is added using the high pass setting.   Other layers will find their way into the process now and again for teeth whitening or eye brightness, however, the five steps outlined above are Nicole’s normal workflow.

Nicole is currently trying to do more travel photography mostly to experience new places and culture, and build her portfolio with a different style of work. She would especially like to visit Antarctica, lured by the colors, wildlife and rarity of the adventure.   She would also like to create more “fine art” photography since most of what she shoots is commercial (lifestyle and food).    ”I don’t have many photos that I would enjoy printing and hanging on my wall.  I’m trying to make a concerted effort to create more of these, especially landscapes.”

Concerning tips and techniques, Nicole likes to use the “live view” feature of her camera when shooting with a tripod, especially food photography.   The live view allows her to zoom in on the focus spot to ensure the clarity and sharpness.    This view also allows her to adjust the props and food easily.

Nicole draws inspiration from many photographers, however, there are two that especially stand out.   The first is Gregory Crewdson, whose images are very surreal, and somewhat eerie.  He spends more than the average amount of time in post production, which Nicole translates into dedication and vision.  She is also a fan of Julianne Kost’s composite work.  Nicole describes her work as dreamlike, and especially loves the textures and colors Julianne uses.

You can Find Nicole online at her personal blog, Twitter and Google+

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The Indie Spotlight

Each Monday, we’ll highlight one indie photographer whose body of work deserves special recognition. Please enjoy their photography here, and make it a point to enjoy the rest of their work on their website.

As a preforming musician of thirty plus years, I have both empathy and much respect for the concert photographer.   Getting a decent shot is a challenge in itself, but when you add the drunk fan or out-of-control mosh pit to the mix, that challenge raises a few notches.  Emily Rose McGonigle, this week’s Indie Spotlight, meets that challenge and more.

Hailing from my hometown of Allentown, Pennsylvania, Emily describes her style as “people photography.”  She doesn’t like to narrow it down to “fashion” photography or “portraits” because she does not feel that she is specifically doing either of those things, however, she is taking photos of people and enjoying it.

Emily’s photographic arsenal includes a Canon 550D (T2i) body and a Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens.   This lens was purchased with music photography in mind since many venues are not well lit.  Being able to open the aperture to f/1.4 allows her to get great shots without drastically slowing down the shutter speed.

Emily, like most photographers on a budget, plans purchases based around what will benefit her style.   Since she does not have the luxury of setting up specific lightning in a concert setting as she does with a model shoot, faster and shorter lenses are a must.   This keeps her in front of the action during a concert shoot, rather than having to stand in the back of the venue.

When shooting a live band, Emily has the camera settings in check before leaving the house.  Since she has been shooting bands for quite some time, she has found that f/2.8, 1/125, and an ISO of 1600 to be a good average setting.   Of course, this can change once the show begins and she can assess the lighting, however, the aforementioned settings have proven to be a good starting point.

When shooting a live concert, Emily prefers not to use a flash because she loves the color and the aura that a live setting provides.   If the stage is poorly lit, or the lighting itself is so bright that it blows out the color channels on the camera, she will use a small amount of flash to “water down” the colors.

When photographing models, Emily finds that it depends on the situation.   She will generally try to incorporate ambient light along with some flash to create drama in the scene or to enhance the existing light.  Her main light modifiers presently are umbrella’s.  She will often use these as “shoot-through” umbrellas. On occasion, she has used “gels” on her flash to get a certain effect.

Despite the shoot subject, all images are immediately transferred into Adobe Lightroom.   Next in the workflow is flagging which photos will make the cut and chosen for post processing.  The flagged photos are ready for basic editing (exposure, white balance, contrast, noise reduction, etc.) within Lightroom, and finally the edited photos are exported to Adobe Photoshop CS5 for final processing.

The photos are sharpened in Photoshop, but that is the extent of editing.   Occasionally if there is something that stands out, bothersome to the extent of losing a good night sleep, she will use the cloning tool, however, this is a rarity.  The remaining photographs go through normal retouching (skin smoothing, Liquify, Dodge/Burning, Etc.).

Emily has been shooting for a little over a year and a half, and is still trying to define her style.  She is definitely a fan of the bright color, which is the main reason she chooses to shoot without a flash at live performances.  Keeping the effects of the stage lights is an important part of the process.   From a shooting perspective, Emily tends to use manual focus at live performances when not using a flash, mostly since it is dark and the musicians are moving around so quickly that the AF does not have a chance to lock in.

When photographing models, Emily will sometimes use gel filters.  A favorite photograph, which was a close-up of a model’s face, was shot using a “shoot-through” umbrella and a CTO gel on the flash.  This produced the soft light she wanted to achieve while warming up the model’s face yielding a “sun-glow” look.

A post processing techniques that Emily stumbled upon recently is using the white balance, and tint within Lightroom to tame over saturated colors.   Another is changing the ambiance to dramatically enhance the photograph from the original.

Photographers that Emily admires are Zack Arias, who can create beautiful drama with a single light, and Joey L whom she describes as captivating and awe inspiring.

Although Emily enjoys shooting models and other “people photography,” her dream is to be a concert/promotional photographer on a much larger scale moving from the local/regional scene to national artists.

Emily can be found on Facebook, Twitter, and her personal website.

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“Les Amoureux du Sacre Coeur” by silxy

Let’s talk about the cinema.  For my first project at university, I chose to explore the ‘Cinematography’ genre that I had admired from afar for quite some time.  I have always loved films and the cinematic style, and I decided that in my first project to translate it into my photography.  The theme was “Representing Time”, and I chose to photograph people in their ‘free time’, and to depict their actions in the style of a cinematic film-still.  I had also just purchased a new 50mm F1.8 lens that was perfect for this theme, the reason for which I shall discuss later on.

So what makes a photograph cinematic?  How hard can it really be to make something look cinematic?  Surely all you have to do is insert those two black bars on the top and bottom of an image, and bingo?  Throughout my project, I discovered that it is not as easy as it looks – as most things go.  You cannot just give a photograph two black bars (Mattes) and call it a cinematic shot.  There are numerous other features in cinema and film that make a certain image ‘cinematic’.

"Cinematic: 2" by nfilipevs"

So what makes a photograph cinematic? As of yet, there is no definite explanation, but from what I have gathered (and what I have tried to achieve), a photograph is classed as cinematic if it appears to be of a scene straight from a film because of its stylistic values, and/or if it translates ideas of a bigger back story because of its content. An important thing I should point out is that I was only working in portraiture for my project.  Because of this, I found that one of the main aspects of ‘cinematography’ I employed while I was shooting, was perspective. I found that there were certain compositions and angles that worked and gave my images that ‘film-still’ style, and others that did not. For example, below is an image of someone watching someone else, or perhaps following them. This photograph was taken from behind the person doing the watching/following and it allows the audience to see from their perspective, but to also see them at the same time. From the way the watcher is positioned at an angle away from the person walking away, I want to say that they are not following them, but just watching them walk away.  The lack of colour as well gives a feeling of sadness and emphasises a feeling of abandonment, created by the perspective of this image.

"Cinematography project 2" by santeria-girl"

Another aspect that I paid a lot of attention too was colour – admittedly, this is more of a post-production aspect but as I did not work in RAW all the time, I had to make sure the white balance, tones and general colour cast was suitable for the atmosphere I was trying to create.  Colour plays a big part in cinematography, as it does in all other photography. Again, because I was working in portraiture, I used colour to effectively create the mood of the photograph.

"90" by Ameena Rojee"

"A Drowning" by ravenblakh"

Above is one of the first finished images from my project. In retrospect, I would edit the colour to be less warm because it does not suit the mood that I was trying to get across in this image. I wanted it to feel subdued and quite cold – blue tones and whiter lighting would have been more suitable. Lighting was also a problem though – I had to use whatever lighting I had around me as I have none of my own, and daylight was slowly disappearing earlier and earlier with the approaching winter. In the room I took this photograph, the light was very yellow, and combined with the cream walls it has cast a warm yellow colour over the image, and I have had to just try my best in post-production to get it to where I wanted.

In contrast, this image by ravenblakh shows a woman being drowned by an unknown person, or entity. I say entity because of the colour of the assailants hands – they are an unnatural pale white colour, hinting that whatever is attacking this woman is not completely human, if at all. The colours in this image are very cold, and unnatural because of the combination of the red water and the blue/green tones, which suits the atmosphere and story very well. Also, the perspective of the photograph is very interesting as it puts you in the shoes of the assailant and, and for this reason I think it is very successful in being a ‘cinematic’ photograph because it is a great and effective perspective, especially in this kind of story-line.

"Moody Water" by Latryx"

These tones in this image are gorgeous – the blue tones, the lone fisher in his boat all give off vibes of loneliness and complete desolation. There is not even a hint of life in the river itself. I say loneliness and desolation instead of calm and relaxation, which blue also connotes, because of the darkness of everything. A brighter blue on a sunny day would turn this image into one of happiness and give off the feeling of calmness and utter peace; however, this is not so. The blue is a very dark, murky blue, and the location also gives off the feeling of alienation from the rest of the world. The mistiness and rare calm of the body of water, combined with the seemingly gorgeous location, also add a slight sense of magic and the supernatural, and it is a very atmospheric photograph. Another thing about cinematic style photography that can be included or not are the mattes (the black bars) in images. They exist because of widescreen film, and the 16:9 aspect ratio, and can appear on top and underneath, or on either side of a film. The most popular format though, as seen above, is below and above. On the other hand, the mattes do not need to be used to make an image ‘cinematic’. It does emphasise the idea of a cinematic film still, perhaps more so to those who do not appreciate images as much as photographers and artists, but it does not necessarily make an image cinematic, and therefore should not be seen as a quick shortcut.

Depth-of-field also plays a large hand in cinematic photography. As you can see  in “90″, the focus is quite shallow, only being on the hair, hand and that end of the sofa. This shallow depth-of-field is very common in ‘cinematic’ photography, especially portraiture; however, it is all dependent on the nature and content of your photograph. For example, if there was a landscape photograph of a range of mountains, F1.8 would not be a good choice unless there was perhaps a person or something else in the foreground of importance that you wanted to focus on, consequently removing the focus off of the mountains. For my project,  I have trying to take all my images using my 50mm at F1.8, mostly because I adore a shallow depth-of-field, but I have found that it proves to be most effective when working in portraiture, as proved in the below image.

"105" by Ameena Rojee"

"The Embrace Scene" by Ameena Roje"

Below are a few images from my project that I consider the best.

The above photograph of two people hugging has to be one of my favourites. It was a great timed photograph that I got because I was playing around with my camera in a friend’s flat. I really love the emotion captured in the image, and although it is a very happy image, I went with what felt right when editing the colours, and this is the result, which I am quite happy with. It seems a very nostalgic image, so maybe there are two levels here – the first is the character remembering this scene, and the second is this scene actually happening. Perhaps one of the two people here is the main character, and he or she is remember an old friend or old love. This is the beauty of cinematic photography, I find – the stories created can be as detailed or open-ended as the photographer wants them to be.

"The Kitchen Scene" by Ameena Rojee"

"120" by Ameena Rojee"

At the end of this article, I can say that there are various aspects that are needed to be taken into account when creating cinematic photography, some of which I have explored here. Obviously, there are a whole lot of other things that can affect photographs when trying to create a cinematic style, and hopefully here I have covered the main ones. So what does make a photograph ‘cinematic’? Post your comments, thoughts and links to your cinematic images below.

Thanks for reading!

"vrabiorul-vint" by zorislav stojanović"

Some useful links:

“What is cinematography?”

Cinematic photography tutorial 1

Cinematic photography tutorial 2

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[ Editor's Note: I figured a little more European Flare is necessary, so hailing from Italy comes Ugo Cei. Though he considers himself an amateur, he has a real knack for the technical aspects and composition, which I think will lend itself to FYP perfectly. His focus is on city and landscapes primarily, but the first article from Ugo lends itself to all types of genres and I hope you find it informative and enjoyable! Cheers! ]

If there is one thing that draws me to digital photography is the range of tools and techniques that photographers can use, not just to record reality as their eyes can see it, but to make things which are normally invisible visible, to capture details that the human eye can’t see, or to create entire new kinds of realities.

Techniques like High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography, stitching panoramas from multiple images, focus stacking, making a raging sea look like cotton using long exposures, freezing the motion of fast moving objects, shooting star trails in the middle of the night, or making the night as bright as day, all can be used to make us experience things that we would never be able to perceive with the naked eye.

In this article, I am going to demonstrate some techniques that can be used to effectively freeze motion and let you appreciate the details of liquids splashing and small objects smashing together.

Many phenomena happen, literally, at the speed of sound and are beyond what can be achieved using only equipment that is available to most photographers, and typically require specialized hardware that can be tricky to build and expensive to buy.  Think bullets flying through objects or smashing into glass panes, or water-filled balloons exploding.

There are some other events, however, that can be captured easily and with little or no expense.  One example is splashing liquids.  The droplets created when you drop an object into water, or when you quickly pour some liquid onto a solid, move pretty fast. You might think that, by setting the shutter on your camera to a very high speed, you would be able to freeze those, but that is not as easy as it might seem.  To compensate the loss of light that comes with a high shutter speed, either the aperture must be very large, or the ISO very high, or both.  These imply a depth of field that is too shallow or too much noise.

So, discounting the possibility of using a high shutter speed, what are your options?  Basically, you will have to use some kind of artificial lighting.  Those flashes that you can put on the hot-shoe of your camera and even use off-camera?  They are perfect for this kind of task.  They are even better, in most cases, than big studio strobes, for one simple reason: the duration of the flash of light emitted by a Speedlight can be very, very short.  The approximate minimum flash duration of my Nikon SB-900 is an astonishingly brief 1/38,500s at 1/128 power.  The lower the power used, the shorter the burst, but even at 1/8 power, which is a lot, the flash is over in 1/5000s.

What this means is that, in order to freeze the motion of a moving subject, you can light it for a very short time with the pulse from a flash and, assuming that the contribution to the exposure from the ambient is negligible, you can freeze fast motion even when using a low ISO and a small aperture in order to have low noise and large depth of field.

I used a Nikon D90 to take the pictures in this article.  A DSLR is probably the most convenient type of camera to use in this situation, but you could also use a point-and-shoot, provided it can shoot in manual mode and has a hot-shoe for mounting a flash.  I put the camera on a tripod. Any tripod will do, as long as it keeps your camera still when shooting and changing the settings.

For the light source, I had my Nikon SB-900 at disposal.  This is the best and most expensive Speedlight in the Nikon product line, but almost any flash will work, provided that you can set its power manually and you can use it off-camera. If you have more than one flash, even better.  I put the flash inside a small softbox and on a stand, at various angles and heights for the different shoots.  This has nothing to do with capturing motion, but you should take care to position the light source and use all the necessary modifiers in order to achieve the best lighting. High speed photography can be fun, but a badly lit subject is a badly lit subject, even if frozen at 1/10,000s.

For the shot of the whisky being poured, I used a couple of Cactus V5 transceivers to remotely trigger the flash from the camera.  They are cheap, reliable, and very useful. In the absence of triggers, some cameras can use their built-in flash as a remote commander.  The D90, for example, can use the pop-up flash as a commander for Nikon CLS-compatible Speedlights, and Canon has a similar system for some of their cameras.  A remote release for triggering the camera shutter is a must. I used the Nikon ML-L3 infrared remote, which is wonderful for this, as it means one less cable running around.

As for camera settings, a typical aperture I used was something between f/11 and f/16, depending on the depth of field I desired.  When shooting with flash, shutter speed does not have any influence on the flash exposure, so any speed which is not greater than the flash sync speed will work.  Remember that the effect of freezing motion is caused by the short burst of flash, not by the camera shutter.  I therefore used 1/200s for most shots, except for the strawberry one, where I used “bulb”, as explained below.  For all shots, I had the camera in manual mode and flash white balance.  It’s also advisable to use manual focus and pre-focus before shooting.

For photos of small subjects, like these, I found that using 1/32 power on the flash is generally adequate, with the softbox at a short distance from the subject.  Experiment with various power settings and flash-to-subject distance in order to find the correct amount of light for your intended aperture.  The closer the flash, the less power you need and, thanks to the inverse square law, if you halve the distance, you will need 1/4th as much power.

Now, everything that I explained so far happens to be the easy part.  If you know your instruments, you should be up and running, having taken a few test shots to nail the exposure, in a matter of minutes.  The really hard part comes, so to speak, with “posing” your subject, which tends to be a whimsical, nervous, unreliable, and unruly type.  Be prepared for hours, if not days, of frustrating retries and you can look forward to making a mess of your studio, with liquid splashing all over the place.  Cover the area around with sheets of plastic, be careful not to spill liquids over your camera, flash, and computer, and have a large supply of paper tissue at hand for drying up.

The most difficult aspect to nail, unsurprisingly, turns out to be timing the shot with the most interesting part of the splash.  A fraction of a second too early, or too late, and there is nothing there to see.  After a while, you will start getting the hang of it, however, and be able to click reliably at the right time.  Then you will still have to do lots of attempts to get that interesting shape in the liquid. For the strawberry image, I had to discard a lot of images because the fruit ended up having a thin layer of milk covering it.

The nice thing with digital is that you can easily “cheat”.  The whisky pour shot, for instance, is a composite of two shots: one having nice droplets flying around, but a very irregular pour, one with a nice pour but no droplets.  A bit of magic with selective layer masking in Photoshop is all that is needed to combine the best of the two.  Another way you can cheat is by using “fake” liquids in place of the real ones.  When doing the whisky pour shot, I ended up spilling the ‘liquor’ all over the place.  If it had been real whisky, I would have ended up being intoxicated by the fumes.  Instead, I just used tea; with the addition of water, you can make black tea look just like scotch whisky or bourbon.

In case you don’t have any device that can be used to trigger the flash remotely, similar results can be still achieved with some planning.  This was the case with the strawberry in the milk shot, where I didn’t yet have my Cactus V5 transceivers.   I advise, in any case, against just putting the flash onto the hot-shoe, as this will create a very flat, frontal light that is rather ugly. Side lighting is almost invariably much better.  For working without triggers, you need an environment that is almost completely dark, as you will have to use shutter speeds on the order of a few seconds and you don’t want the camera to pick up any extra ambient light during the shot.  In addition to this, you will need a flash that can be triggered manually. Most flashes have a “test” button that will discharge the unit at the set power level.

To take the shot, set the camera shutter speed to B (for “bulb”) mode.  You can also set it to a time of about 3 to 5 seconds, depending on the speed with which you are able to carry on the rest of the operations.  When you are ready, open the shutter, start whatever is needed to get the desired effect (like pouring liquid or dropping things), push the test button on the flash at the right moment, and finally close the shutter.  You can easily understand why this is not at all simple, since you have to juggle the camera’s remote release, the subject, the flash, and finally the release again.  It’s probably better if you have an assistant that can take care of at least one of these.  Consider also that you are operating in the dark and you will begin to understand why the success rate is much less that you would hope for.  For instance, when taking the strawberry shot, I ended up missing the bowl completely, or hitting its rim, so man times that in the end I had a bunch of damaged strawberries and only a few survivors with which to get the hero shot.

In the end, this is a kind of photography that requires a good amount of patience, but can be done at home on a rainy day, with little equipment, and can be fun and incredibly rewarding, especially when, after hundreds of failures, you get the shot.

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When I graduated from The New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts one of the very next steps was getting my headshots done.  As it is with all actors, it’s a bit of an involved process.  You spend several hours going blind on Google looking for a photographers work that you like, and who are in your price range, then comes setting up the consultation and meeting the photographer to make sure you are comfortable and click with them.  Personality and comfort is a big thing when it comes to headshots, or portraits, or anything else for that matter.

Headshots are the storefront of the actor’s business.  It’s their calling card, and can mean the difference between getting seen by casting directors or not.  Actors often bring a bit of pressure on themselves to get great shots so making them feel at ease is paramount. Headshots for Broadway and film are essentially the same nowadays so you don’t have to worry about specifics.

So before I get into the technicalities of headshots lets look a bit at how they are used and what the industry is looking for.  First off there is a subtle difference between NYC headshots and LA headshots.  LA tends to have just a hint more “fashion flare”, but the overall objectives are the same.   For this I’ll be focusing on NYC headshots, as that’s what I shoot the most.

There are generally 2 people that see headshots first besides the client (ex producer, director etc).

~Agents, are the people who are in contract with an actor to find them auditions, and are responsible for getting them to auditions that are “right” for the actors type.

~Casting Directors are the people who see all the actors’ auditions for the particular job they are casting for.  They often see tons of people a day, and often look for different things in a headshot than an agent.

Headshots in general are used as a way for agents and casting directors to meet the actors through their picture and get a sense of them and how to cast them. There are essentially two types of Headshots:

The Legit Shot: This shot is usually more serious in nature and is often composed of just below the shoulders to the top of the head, framed horizontally, it’s ok to cut of some of the head as well, they want to see the hair but it’s not about the hair.  In headshots coaching becomes of key component of the shoot. Headshots are about eyes and lips, the eyes could be spot on but if there is awkward tension in the lips it will throw off the shot as well. LA likes to do a light open mouth here and there, I say unless you’re going laugh keep your mouth closed…it’s up to you though

The Commercial Shot: This shot tends to be a 3/4 shot framed from the mid-waist or lower to the top of the head; shot vertically. It can ALSO be

framed the same as a Legit shot. I tend to shoot 95% horizontal than vertical, as it looks more like a film still, and commercial shots are usually happier, smiling shots. Just make sure those smiles are genuine, which usually involves massive amounts of wittiness

I try and get a look of great desire with a very very slight smile, sometimes no smile at all. Let’s be honest…sex sells and that tends to be the trick, getting the eyes to deliver that look of desire without going over the top. It takes a lot of work on the subject’s part as well as the photographer.  Some technical ways to achieve this is to make sure the subject is breathing into the camera, and lowering the chin slightly. When someone breathes in it automatically adds oxygen to the eyes giving them some life, and the subject should then have something going on in their mind.  This is where the subject play’s a crucial role; THEY need to be working just as hard as you.

The MOST important thing to remember in any portrait photography work, but especially in headshots…is that the camera PHOTOGRAPHS THOUGHT.  If they aren’t engaging the camera their eyes will be dead or boring…not the best way to get a job.

A few technical things:

You want to make sure you are showing them in authentic way, so no crazy makeup, not a lot of under eye eye-liner for girls (makes them look a bit older), etc.

Solid neutral colors for clothes tend to work best, and for women cami’s, and tank tops work well as it shows the neck, shoulders, and clavicle well, and these are all ways to tell a woman’s body type which helps out casting directors.

The longer focal length you use the more it removes distortion and flattens the image, which will represent your subject in the most accurate way to the human eye.  I’d say a minimum of 105mm is required and if you can go longer I would.  Almost all my headshots are taken around 200mm at f/2.8-f/3.5. This creates nice subject separation and bokeh.  It also gives the sense of the subject being in an environment, and also gives it a bit of a “film” look.

The camera likes angles, and the rule of thirds gets used a lot in headshots.  You don’t want to do a ton of posing but you can work a model into positions that work well in a tight frame and also help get that comfortable look.  Often times leaning forward, holding shoulders back a bit, placing hands on legs all this sets the body up in an “I’m engaging you” way which helps the actor mentally have those thoughts coincide with the pose.  Often achieving this isn’t as complicated as it sounds, and will happen fairly naturally with just some tweaks along the way.

Lighting

Obviously the most important thing when it comes to photography, and when it comes to people its paramount.  You can use natural light or flash or a mix of both.

I tend to like shooting outside as much as possible as it sets the actor in an environment and has the look of something you would see on film.  However, shooting outside presents it’s own challenges.  The weather has to be right, which is always the biggest issue.  Headshots have to be pretty well lit so shooting outside with no lighting tends to render pretty flat lighting with backgrounds that aren’t as dynamic as they could be, depending of course on the lighting conditions that day, sometimes it works great and sometimes all natural light is just dull.

To cope with this issue, most of my headshots now are shot using a combination of a reflector, and one SB-900 Speedlight shot through a softbox.  Occasionally I bring out a second Speedlight to splash some light on backgrounds to add a bit of punch to it.  This essentially lets you get control of the background and bring in the light on your subject, and the results are fantastic.  It also allows you to blend the ambient light with the Speedlights to create a very natural look.  You can also do some fun stuff for a bit more of a dramatic feel, which can be good for an actor to have handy.  Though more dramatically lit shots are not good as “everyday” shots for the actor, they can be useful in the sense that the actor can submit very contrasting images.

I typically shoot with a cloudy white balance and a ¼ cut CTO (color temperature orange) gel on my Speedlights.  The cloudy white balance tends to render skin tones in a subtle warm way, giving the skin a color and richness that is very natural and pleasing.  Using the ¼ CTO gel is also very important as the Speedlights I use have a very cool light temperature, so this warms the light up giving it a very natural, almost sun quality look and feel.  Under bright conditions the Speedlight is there just to add fill light and put some great catch-light into the eyes.  As the light fails is when I do a bit of the dramatic stuff.  You can also shoot with a very fast shutter speed to bring everything way down then light the subject and this alone can create some drama as well.

These little Speedlights are really fantastic for most all the portrait work I do, very portable, very powerful, and with endless attachments to soften and work with the light.  Strobist.com has some excellent articles about working with them, as does Joe McNally.  I learned a lot about using them well with these two resources and once you get the feel you learn more and more about different ways to bring Speedlights to life in a new way.

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Photo from poster by Bryan J Zimmerman

As a musician of 25 plus years, I have watched many incredible changes take place, the biggest being the switch from analog to digital, and the birth of the virtual studio.  Recording sessions that used to cost $100.00 per hour or more became affordable to the mass market, which allowed unlimited experimentation.  Money aside, I am even more intrigued with the prospect of what artists like Jimi Hendrix, Mozart, Elvis Presley, Bach, or Jim Morrison (of The Doors) would have accomplish using this new technology.  The same leap in technology can be applied to artists of all types, especially the photographer, who can experiment without the burden of film costs.

A couple weeks ago, a fellow photographer and I were discussing a technique called “Painting With Light,” which is something I have always wanted to try.  As I began reading up on how this technique is achieved, I couldn’t help but wonder what Dali, Waterhouse, or Picasso would accomplish if they were given the opportunity to harness this new technology and replace their paint brush with a flashlight.  Much like the aforementioned musicians, these artists were ahead of their time, and the results would no doubt be mind-bending.

I decided to give it a try, and although the results were decent, it became evident that this technique was going to take practice.  After doing some research online, I seemed to have most of the tools necessary to accomplish this task; a camera that allows full control of the shutter, a tripod, a flashlight or pen light, a pitch dark area, and a ton of patience.  For more elaborate photos, it is good to have something stronger than a flashlight, however, for my experiments these tools did the job.  Since this was new territory for me, I documented my learning curve which took place over a period of three nights.

The first night took place indoors, so I could try this technique in a safe environment before heading outdoors and stumbling around in the back yard.  Using one of my guitars as the subject, I kept one light on to make sure the guitar was in focus, and then I yelled, “Off with the lights!”  Yelling is not mandatory, however, it does make one feel like William Wallace in Braveheart, minus the blood and stench.

With my Canon Rebel XT mounted on a tripod (a must have to accomplish this technique), I set the mode to manual and the shutter speed to “Bulb.” Manually opening the shutter using a shutter release cable, I  began shining the flashlight on the parts of the guitar I wanted to “paint.”  This took a few times to get decent results, but they turned out better than expected.  For the guitarists out there, the photographs are of a Dean Vendetta.

As a side note, holding the flashlight on one spot for too long will burn, or blow out that section of the image, so use the light sparingly at first.

Below are the first round of shots along with exposure times.  None of the photos were manipulated in any way, what you see is exactly what the camera captured.

21 seconds

20 Seconds

10 seconds

The second night I decided to brave the outdoors and have a little fun, not concerning myself with details.  Inspired by photos I found while researching this topic, I started by trying a few shots with cars passing by my house, yielding some very interesting results.  I especially like the “Star Wars” shot as I call it, which look like lasers firing from the headlights.

14 seconds

15 seconds

With flashlight in hand, I headed out to the backyard where an abstract temperature gauge hangs on the side of the house. With a slightly better understanding of how this process worked, I came away with some decent shots.

23 seconds

26 seconds

30 seconds

The final night yielded some of my favorite shots.  I began indoors using a dragon statue lit by candles, an oil painting, and finally a poster of the late Jim Morrison.

10 seconds

14 seconds

10 seconds

The money shots happened in the back yard; with nothing more than a pen light in hand, I stood about thirty feet from the camera and began to paint.  The results were exactly what I envisioned, however, not what I anticipated.  As you will see below, the shutter was open much longer as you have to “paint” very slowly to achieve the desired shapes.  The shutter was open just under two minutes for the circle/cross photo.

58 seconds

89 seconds

I thoroughly enjoyed this experiment, and will continue to learn by trying new techniques.  Keep in mind, that with any new venture, whether it be photography, or a new job, the most important tools are time and patience.  Lastly, and most important, when you try this for the first time, it is imperative to yell, as I did,  “Out with the lights!“

I promise I won’t tell anyone :)

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Today’s cameras are marvels of modern electronics, they contain powerful computers which can carry out thousands of calculation in the blink of an eye, surely they must be able to accurately capture the colour in a scene?  The digital camera does not see colour as we do with our eyes, all that it can do is to calculate what the colour should be by making use of an internal reference scale.  What then happens when you display that image of your computer screen, does it use the same reference scale that the camera does? What about your printer, is it using the same reference as your camera, and computer screen.  Well guess what , if you don’t make sure that they are all on the same scale, then what you capture and what you print may not look the same..

The complexity of colour

We could enter into a complex discussion on the origins or colour, the definitions of colour models and colour spaces ,at the end of which you could possibly write a PhD dissertation on the subject.  But hey we are photographers not colour technicians and we just need to understand how the choices that we make can affect the final look of our image.  Lets keep it simple and discuss those areas that have the maximum impact on what we do and the concept of colour management.  These two images were taken minutes apart using different colour settings on the camera and as you can see the results are dramatically different.

Colour Management

Wikipedia the online encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_management) describes colour management as “ colour management is the controlled conversion between the colour representations of various devices, such as image scanners, digital cameras, monitors, TV screens, film printers, computer printers, offset presses, and corresponding media.“  Take specific note of the words “the controlled conversion “ which suggests the use of a standardized process of allowing images to transit various electronic devices whilst still maintaining colour accuracy during the complete process from capture to print. .

Before You Shoot, choose the right colour space

A device colour space describes the range of colours  that a camera can see  or a monitor can display and is tied to the specific electronic or physical characteristics of the device it describes (e.g a Monitor which uses light to produce colour or a Printer which uses dyes).  Whilst editing colour spaces  such as Adobe RGB or sRGB, are not dependent on a device and therefore facilitate the editing of images in a standardized manner.  As photographers we work mainly with editing colour spaces and the most common ones we will encounter are  Adobe RBG (1998) and sRGB.

RGB (For Recording & Editing)

The RGB colour model is an additive colour model in which red, green, and blue light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colours. Televisions and computer monitors use RGB to reproduce colour

CMYK (Printing) The CMYK colour model is a subtractive colour model, used in colour printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself.  CMYK refers to the four inks used in some colour printing: cyan, magenta, yellow, and key black

For best results your applications and devices need to work in the same colour space. Use a larger colour space, such as Adobe RGB, if your camera or scanner can support it.  Use sRGB for web graphics since using Adobe RGB in such settings leads to washed-out looking colours in applications that are not colour aware (e.g. Most browsers).

During your shooting, record colour correctly by setting your white balance

A digital camera needs to find a reference point which represents white.  It will then calculate all the other colours based on this white point.  In normal lighting conditions such as can be found on a sunny day, you can get by with the standard white balance settings that built into your camera.   However in tricky shooting situations where there may be a mix of light sources (e.g ambient light plus fluorescent fixtures), you will not get predictable or consistent results by just using the built in settings, this is when you will need to be comfortable in setting a custom white balance

Custom white balance sets a reference point for the camera by using an image of a neutral white or grey subject taken in the same lighting conditions that illuminate your intended subject.  Two popular methods of setting the custom white balance are to use;

● An Expodisc

● A grey Card

ExpoDiscs (sold by Expoimaging) are used to set the custom white balance. The Expodisc is screwed onto your lens just like you would attach a filter, the camera is then placed in the same position as your subject and pointed back to where you intend to take the shot from.   The white balance is then set using the cameras custom white balance menu option.  The Expodisc actually turns your camera into an incident  light meter, measuring the light that falls on the intended subject

Some characteristics of Expo Discs are;

● Relatively easy to use

● Provide accurate white balance

● Easy snap-on installation

● Since they fit directly on the lens you  may need to purchase one for each lens of a different size

Expensive (around US 120.00)

A less expensive option is the Grey Card.  Grey cards may be used for in-camera white balance or post-processing white balance.  For in camera white balance, a photo of the grey card is taken and used to set the custom white balance for a sequence of photos.  For post-processing white balance, a photo of the grey card is taken in the same light that illuminates the subject.  Later during post processing the reference photo is used in the image processing software to set the white balance point for all images taken in that session..

After the Shot (editing and printing)

You may have experienced that at some time, the  display of an image on the computer screen differs from how it looks when printed.   Don’t forget that the computer screen uses light to render your image, whilst  an inkjet printer is spraying dye ), ink onto a piece of paper whose characteristics are much different from your screen.  To avoid this mismatch it is best to calibrate your monitor and printer.  Calibration of these devices will usually provide a screen display that simulates closely what prints on paper.  There are many reasons why display and printed output may be different e.g.

● Monitors use additive RGB colour while printing uses subtractive CMYK pigments, each a different way of reproducing colour.

● During printing, ink layering and overlapping causes subtle shifts in colour not found in the individual pixels that make up a screen image.

● Printed images don’t have the same range, saturation, and contrast as a monitor, making the colours typically darker and less vibrant than on screen.

● Paper texture and brightness also affect and change the printed image.

Begin with the calibration of your monitor, then ensure that you use the correct printer driver for your printer.Within the printer driver there will be controls for fine tuning the overall appearance of colour from your printer.

Colour calibration with ICC profiles

● ICC profiles provide a way to ensure consistent colour.

● These files are specific to each device on your system and contain information about how that device produces colour.

● With printers the ideal situation is to create separate profiles based on various combinations of ink and paper because this affects the appearance of the printed material.

● For more precise colour management, you can use colour management software to develop custom ICC profiles for any device.

Colour Management Systems include tools for calibrating monitors, scanners, printers, and digital cameras so they all “speak the same colour.”  These tools often include a variety of generic profiles as well as the means to customize profiles for any or all of your devices.

Choose the calibration tools that match your budget and your need for accurate representation of colour on-screen and in print.  Examples are ;

● Huey Pro

● X-Rite i1Display

● Colormunki

● Spyder3Elite.

Summary

● Choose the correct colour space for your camera and editing software (AdobeRGB)

● Set your white balance when shooting in tricky conditions

● Calibrate your monitor

● Calibrate your printer and paper with ICC profiles

If these steps are followed, the result should be consistent and accurate rendering of colours in your photos.

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[ Editor's Note: Since I love introducing new writers to you all, here's one more: Chris is a wonderful wedding and lifestyle photographer from my neighborhood, Washington, DC. He has been at it for only a little over a year while also attending college for photography, which I feel will add a unique perspective and make a delightful addition to the team. I hope you enjoy the upcoming works from Chris! ]

For as long as I’ve been showing my photos to others, whether it be to family, prospective clients, or other photographers, there’s always been one question I’ve hated the most.  It was hard to avoid because it always accompanied by a compliment.  If you’ve been shooting long, you know exactly what I’m talking about.  “That’s an awesome photo… what kind of camera did you use?”  They normally mean well, but it always burns in the back of the mind of many photographers.  Nobody asks a chef what kind of stove he uses, or what kind of chisel Michelangelo used to create the David.

So… from one photographer to another… just this once, I’m going to let you in on what my wife and I carry in our bags when we go to an on location shoot, whether it be an engagement shoot, wedding, or otherwise.  I’ll list the bodies, lenses, flashes, and things we just can’t leave home without.

First lets talk about my bag itself.  It’s a Lowepro Slingshot 300w.  It’s modular, has space for a laptop, an all weather cover for when I’m caught in the rain and one shoulder strap which makes it easy for me to grab the bag and bring it around to the front of me so I can quickly get to my next lens.  My wife, however, is interested in style as well functionality.  She chooses to carry a Kelly Moore bag.  If you are a woman or know a woman photographer, I suggest this bag.

Bodies:

The body I’ve grown to love and trust is the Nikon D300.  (I’m going to avoid the obvious Canon vs. Nikon arguments). My first ever DSLR was the D60 and then the D90 and I feel that the D300 with it’s exceptional shutter speed and focus ability, I’ll be able to hold onto this camera for a while.  Eventually I would like to upgrade to a full frame camera.  I hear once you go full frame… well you know how it goes.  My wife, Brandy, carries the new Nikon D7000.  It has the highest megapixel count and best video capability of the Nikon line.  She likes that it’s lighter than my D300.

Lighting:

We each have a SB600 speedlight with respective Gary Fong Modifiers.  If you’re doing much wireless master/slave shooting with your flashes, than the SB600 has just enough bang for the buck.  We bought them before the SB700 came out, but I also highly recommend that one if you want to spend a little extra.

Lenses:

50mm f/1.8 This is my favorite portrait lens if you have a CMOS sensor.  There is also a f/1.4 version that is hundreds of dollars more, but you have plenty of bokeh with the 1.8.  This is definitely the lens that I can’t leave home without.

AF-S 70-300mm f/4.5 This is my choice for telephoto zoom.  It isn’t the fastest telephoto that Nikon makes, but its very affordable, fits in my bag, and is a solid zoom lens for the price.

AF Fisheye 10.5mm f/2.8 This one is just a lot of fun!  Everyone should have at least one fisheye.  Sometimes you need more than a 180 degree field of vision to really capture the scenery.  Such as the inside of a gorgeous church or the full awesomeness of Great Falls, VA.

AF-S 18-105 f/3.5 This is the stock lens that comes with the mid level Nikons, but I still keep it around for everyday shooting.  If you don’t know what you’re going to be shooting or how close, this covers a nice focal range.

Incidentals:

These are the things that we just can’t go on a shoot without that many people don’t think about.

Gorillapod. There’s several variations of these out there now.  There’s even ones that have a moveable head on them.  The reason I carry this instead of a regular tripod, again, is for portability’s sake and there are many sites that don’t allow you to set up a tripod or require a “professional photographers” fee if you do.  They don’t typically bat an eyelash at my Gorillapod.

32” 5-in-1 reflector. I am absolutely in love with this thing.  Ever since the first outdoor shoot I used it on I vowed I would never shoot portraits outdoors without it.  You want the sun peaking through the clouds behind your subject but that makes them either underexposed or your speedlight blows them out?  This solves that problem.  Or if you want them looking up at the sky but don’t want them to squint?  Unzip it and use the translucent ring to diffuse the sun.

A step stool.  Ok, ok.  So I don’t keep that “in my bag”, but we always try to keep it in our car when we go out.  Sometimes you just need a higher vantage point.  I once tried to do this by climbing a tree and dropped my D90 about 10 feet or so it landed with the  SB600 making contact with the ground first which consequently snapped  at the hotshoe point.  I don’t suggest this.  Steps aren’t that cumbersome.  (plus my wife is a tad vertically challenged).

2 OFF! brand clip-on mosquito repellent. Tall grass, fields of grains, hundreds of rows of sunflowers, and countless other parts of nature make up some of the most unbelievable backdrops, but they also contain bugs.  We try our best to not only create beautiful pictures, but to also make sure our clients experience is pleasant.  Waking up the next morning covered in bug bites isn’t very pleasant.  So why clip-ons?  Bug sprays can leave a sort of sheen on the skin and can reflect light and make your clients or models look shiny.  If we give our client one of these, she can clip it to the back of her dress or somewhere not seen by the camera and keep away bugs without being covered in spray.  She’ll thank you for it, I promise.

Granola Bars/water bottle. Never expect a bride to feed you.  It happens a lot, but not always.  Even if we aren’t shooting a wedding, we all know this can be really taxing sometimes, keep something to munch on.

A white blanket/towel You may ask your client/model to lay on a log or walk through a stream, or something that may require her or him to get wet or dirty.  It’s always best to be a gentleman/lady and either lay down a blanket for them to sit on that can be tucked out of site of the picture, or have a towel to dry their feet.  Again, it’s a little thing that they’ll remember you for.

Brandy and I have a wish list of things we would love to add to our set of tools, but we have come to trust in this kit and have had success with it over and over again.  My suggestion to you is to go through trial and error and come up with a kit that works for you.  If you’re out on a shoot and you think to yourself… ”Man, it would be awfully useful if I added…” be sure to make a note and add that to your kit the next time until you always have what you need.  If you have such a kit already, what incidental items do you carry that you can’t leave home without?

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Modern cameras make much use of technology, for exposure measurement they use the 18% grey scale method.  This method assumes that regardless of what you are metering in your viewfinder that it must equivocate to 18% grey scale; this is the technological equivalent of a bell curve.  Camera in automatic or programmed mode also have a set of pre-programmed scenes from which to closely approximate your scene and to customize your exposure, but this may not be always what you want.  In order to get this you need to be able to adjust your cameras settings (i.e. aperture/shutter speed/ISO)  but also to read your histogram to see when you are getting a properly exposed frame for best quality.

The Histogram is probably the greatest advent of modern digital photography in conjunction with the screen on the back of your camera.  The Histogram is a modern day light meter and can instantly tell you how much light is reaching the sensor of you camera from the actual recorded image.  Though it may first appear difficult to understand, it is not.  The histogram is a measure of light reaching the camera across the spectrum from dark to light with dark being on the left hand side and light on the right, the midrange (18% grey)  is of course the middle with 2 other intermediate shades medium-dark and medium-light on either side of the 18% grey in the middle.

The Histogram

Despite progress in technology, human interpretation still very much required.  At times you may see a scene that has a one sided graph either dark (left) or light (right) but as the artist you must assess your scene and see if this is the interpretation of the scene you are shooting that you wish to portray.  For instance shooting a beach scene or sunrise may not have much of the dark element in it and the histogram will either be towards the middle or of a lot of the sky in in the frame even gravitated towards the right of the graph.  On the other hand night photography will not have much of the light element and the histogram will gravitate towards the left.  Now that you know these basics the other important element to know is that, when your histogram displays a flat line at the top of the graph that means you have exceeded the range of the sensor and will have some clipping.

For those of you who use virtually any image processing software (Photoshop, Aperture, Lightroom), you will also see the Histogram in your software package; in some packages on the Histogram and especially adjustment dialog boxes you will notice a range of 0 (zero) to 255. at the bottom of the dialog box. this actually represents the range of exposure similar to the Histogram with zero being on the left and 255 being on the right.  Each of the 5 distinct segments in the graph above represent 55 1/5 increments of difference in its range.  For the purpose of this article I’ve used the histogram from Apple’s Aperture image processing software to accompany the photographs I’ve used to demonstrate range.

You will notice in this picture of a light fixture on a wall that the Histogram is seems to be rather one sided despite the bright splash of color that is shown, those of us who have operated in a black and white darkroom would instantly be clued in on this as the red color, similar to a darkroom safelight, is in a range that although visible to the human eye the red light is of a wavelength that is not super sensitive to photographic mediums, hence the rendering of the graph as it did.  You will also notice in this photograph that along with that the flat line at the top which indicates that you have exceeded the range of the camera, this may happen to you from time to time as you explore the possibilities of shooting with your histogram as an exposure guide.  My intent here was to show the wall totally dark except for the single splash of red light without any bleed from the same.  There is a declining measurement of exposure as the graph moves towards the very light range of the histogram hence it tapers off progressively as it approaches this range.

The histogram of picture of the Peacock appears to be a bit muted because of the predominance of brown in the image but you’ll notice that in actuality the blue is quite brilliant.  This image does not fully fill up the frame because the peacock is not an inanimate object so getting a very quick capture without the iridescence of the flash causing a bounce back of light was tantamount.  As you’ll realize that different colors will show in different spectrum’s of the histogram keep this in mind when you start to use your histogram.

On viewing this image, shot at the Hotel Diva in San Francisco,  you’ll see the subject is wearing a black shirt which causes some register on in the dark spectrum but the image is dominated primarily by 18% grey or something very close to it, this cause the middle of the histogram to peak and be the predominant spectrum registered on the graph.

Shot hand-held in a darkened theater at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, naturally this would be on the dark side of the spectrum even though glimmers of white show up the exposure is dominate by darker areas

Here is an image dominated by the lighter side of the spectrum with the white walls to the point where some clipping does occur, you loose detail in the clipping but my intent was not to capture detail in the wall it was to capture detail of the scene, do take note that their is a sliver of activity in the black representing the jeans and black shirt worn by one of the models.

This picture of an overturned boat was taken at a mountain top lake in the Nature Isle of the Caribbean Dominica.  From the image you’ll notice that you have very dark areas of the image and some light images but nothing that is very light, this is very much reflected in the histogram with peaks in the very darks, the dark and the light areas and very little in the 18% grey area.

What you’ll realize is that there is NO set way that your histogram should look it changes from scene to scene so you should have an idea of what to expect in your histogram even before you shoot your scene.  Knowing all this you’ll realize that the histogram should be used to check exposure while the display of the actual image should be used check composition and also if you are using flash to ensure that you have not created shadows that you did not intend to, however, at no time should it be used to evaluate exposure.  The register of light on your cameras display can vary depending on how brightly you have your monitor set or even ambient light conditions.  If you aren’t going to shoot today take some time to evaluate your past images and view the histograms for them and see if you could have made improvement in their exposure.  I recommend (if you can) downloading the images from your camera but not deleting the card and then view the images histogram in your image editing software while comparing it to the histogram on your camera to ensure that they register similarly.

Happy shooting and remember to check those histograms!!!

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1. Digital Photography School

This site has it all. Tutorials and articles on everything photography you can imagine. Equipment, post-processing, tips/tricks, forums, assignments, etc. It is because of sites like this that people can buy a camera and make a career out of it with no formal education. If you haven’t seen it, well, you are missing out on a TON of really useful information.

2. Strobist

You may have your camera down pat, but what about your flash? This site has some fantastic tips for on and off camera lighting. Photography IS all about light, right?

3. Photographer’s Edit

If you find yourself pulling your hair out because you have taken on more jobs than you can handle, Photographer’s Edit might be your solution. The concept: you take the pictures, they do the editing. Tempting, isn’t it?

4. Behance

A collection of portfolios from some of the most talented creatives in the industry. A great source of inspiration for all genres. I would say this site is best for those photographers who are already established and need some new ideas. Just be careful, you could find yourself browsing the site for hours!

5. B&H Photo Video

Love this site. Mainly because it is where you will find the most reliable equipment for the best deal. For most products, you have the option of buying new or used equipment. I love it when people take your budget into consideration.

6. Photojojo

You wouldn’t believe some of the ideas these people come up with. Ways to use your photos, or even recycling your camera…this site is a MUST for all you photo fans!

7. I Heart Faces

This site has you smiling the second you see it with it’s clean, appealing design. A great resource for portrait photographers who are looking for both tips/tricks, and get to know other talented photographers. Check out the challenges and the guest judges they bring in.

Do you have other sites you frequently visit? Let us know about it!