It’s been a while since we posted last time but it doesn’t mean we weren’t busy this summer. Our latest work include new maternity and newborn photo sessions all around Manhattan and Brooklyn as well as other New York boroughs. We captured bundles of joy but one angel is at the top of our list. Meet Leo and his happy parents:
What’s a better way to spend a weekend then photographing one of my families. I was very fortunate to be hired to document Gregory’s first week in this beautiful world and almost a year later we’re back again for more of these once-in-a-lifetime portraits. I always enjoy spending time with Eddy and Shella and hope that these photographs will remind them of many joyful moments.
If you’ve been on the market for a professional photographer lately you probably came across a couple of shoot-N-burn guys as well as some photoshopographers.
Those of you that have booked me know where I stand on the subject and even thought I believe that a great photograph starts with the right basics (light, composition, lines of sight, patters, poses, etc) it’s also important to bring out the best in each person – that’s where photo enhancement comes in.
I shoot in RAW format and each photograph I bring back to the studio goes through post-processing. In addition, all printed photographs are digitally enhanced to take full advantage of printed media.
Below is a RAW photograph from one of my latest maternity sessions:
This is the client version of the same image (post-processed)
Let me know what you think at stanley@stanleynov.com
I’ve been asked many times what type of equipment I use and my preferred answer is that isn’t the lens that counts but the photographer, however, professional grade cameras and lenses helps a lot. Here’s what photo equipment I usually bring to client photo sessions.
What equipment do you use? What are you favorite lenses and why?
I was recently hired to photograph an fun little family in Brooklyn (maybe not so little after all). This wasn’t my first photo session with twins or even 3 kids but this one was unique because the twins really gave us an opportunity to capture their individualities. The whole session lasted 4 hours and we captured over 500 images and here are a couple of my faves
Recently I was hired to do yet another environmental family session in Brooklyn, NY and the client really wanted my input on the best location. Seeing how the little model is 2.5 years old I figure what better place than a luna park coney island? She loved it and so did I. Thanks to Geni, Alex and Fiona for making this photo session so much fun!
WB – White Balance is an art unknown to many beginning and amateur photographers. Now a days digital cameras are advanced enough to make “best guess estimate” on what kind of light is being captured and adjust the picture accordingly. Below is an example of the “best guess estimate” taken of my wife at a supermarket yesterday
As you can see, she’s holding a set of grey cards, you can also tell the image has a yellow tint. These cards are used as reference points to set the correct WB during post processing (can also be set as “Custom WB” in the camera itself). The resulting image is now properly white balanced.
In Adobe Lightroom, use the “White Balance Selector” tool to pick a neutral shade (a.k.a the grey card).
Once the ‘calibration image’ is captured for a given light environment, you can use it to color correct the remaining images in that batch.
Recently I had the honor to photograph a couple in their last trimester, practically several week before the delivery date. These photoshoots precede infant and child photoshoots and most couples miss the opportunity to document this unique stage of their life.
Naturally, most of the photographs are intimate and private (hence I fully transfer the ownership of these images to my clients) but here’s one I was allowed to share with you.
Every photographer who has tried taking pictures in the snow is aware of the Problem: subjects appear underexposed (darker) than they really are. The reason this is happening has to do with the way cameras evaluate light (via internal reflective sensors). A camera evaluates the frame, determines the amount of bright white snow (highlights) and decides to expose for neutral gray by darkening the shot. Solution: help your camera by setting the exposure to overexpose by 1 stop.
This weekend, I am all into my new toy. It arrived on Friday, I’ve replaced the RAM chip and reinstalled the OS to go with fast and reliable Windows XP – now its all play!
This is a pretty low end machine with a sluggish processor and slow 40GB SSD but for what I need (travel, on-location basic image processing and backup, VOIP, email, blogging, browsing, etc) its perfect.
