Ricardo's Blog

There are of course a lot of blogs, websites and articles online about how to light a subject properly for stunning portraits. This small article talks about a very simple technique you can use to achieve rich portrait lighting that makes the facial features of your model come to life beautifully.  The technique uses only natural light, of the type that comes through your window.

First of all, in most portraits you will want to achieve different levels of light on the face of your photographic subject.  This creates some shadows which make the picture look tri-dimensional.  If you make your light very even on the face you will make the face of your subject look flat.  There is some movement towards even lighting nowadays, especially in fashion and editorial portraits, but you will see that in that case, the volume on the facial features might be achieved with make up or any other means. 

If you are shooting with studio lighting, the way you achieve different levels of light is by placing one lamp at a higher power or closer to the subject (this is called the main light) and a second light at lower power or far from the subject (this is called fill light).

If you are new to photography a simpler way to achive this for practicing is to place your subject close to a large window that lets natural light in.  Position your subject in a way that the light coming from the window lights part of the face (it can be most of the face actually) and part of the face and body have shadows.  Experiment with different angles on your model (relative to the window) and different camera positions.  You should expose to the light on the brighter side of your model (that is, expose to the main light).  Be careful that the light differential between the illuminated side and the dark side is not too big, because that can create problems.  A light differential of 1.5 points is very good between the main light and the fill light, because that creates a 3:1 contrast ratio that looks very good in the resulting image.

Here is an example of this.  The Model on the shot is Finnish Top Model Olivia Kortelainen.  We shot this entirely with natural light coming out of the window.

Any photography questions please leave a comment or contact me in twitter at ricardocarreon.

Posted by rcarreon at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I am starting to build a new alternative model album on flickr.  This album is for model Kodoq, also know as Katie.  Kodoq is a very sucessful alternative Polish performer and model that lives in Finland.  Kodok is also a member of Model Mayhem, where you can find her portfolio under the number 70561.

Here are two photos from Kodoq Katie, you can see all photos published on my Kodoq flickr set.

Kodoq black later dress

Kodoq Katie black latex dress floor shot

Posted by rcarreon at 03:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I shot this picture of Katie at Magito studios, in Helsinki Finland.  Katie is a Polish alternative model/performer that focuses on goth/fetish/industrial type of looks.  In this photo she is wearing a Goth hairstyle with blue dreadlocks and fetish leather lingerie from backstreet.fi . I used Elinchrom flashes for this shot, using light modifiers that produce a relatively hard light, not as hard as the bare bulb, but certainly much harder than softboxes.  The modifiers were honeygrid boxes of about 16 inches.  If you click on the photo you can see it in a big size over a dark background, which I strongly recommend.

Credits:

Model: Kodoq, MM# 70561

Make Up Artist:
Cemille

Wardrobe:
backstreet.fi

Post-processing:
Ivan Matuck

Shot at Magito Studios, Helsinki, Finland

Posted by rcarreon at 04:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It has been a long time since I updated this blog for the last time.

I guess I can come with a bunch of excuses for not updating this on a regular basis, but I am not going to go there.  I have focused my web content publication on my photos and I post a few times a week on flickr.  My flickr stream has been very sucessful with more than 4 Million visitors to date on my photos, sets and flickr stream.  It averages more than 7,000 visits per day, sometimes exceeding more than 10,000.  If you like my photos, please visit my flickr stream for the most up to date photos.

I have decided to come back to this blog and use it as a companion for my photo activities.  There are many wonderful stories about my photography that are hard to tell on flickr or on a quick twitter message...  So, I will be focusing my blog activities going forward on my photography.  I hope you all like it.  Thanks for your continued support.

Posted by rcarreon at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I was recently in Nice, France for TM World's Management Forum 2009.  Nice is one of the major cities along the famous Cote d'Azur at the French Riviera.  I took this gorgeous shot of a lonely man walking through the narrow streets of it old district Vieux Nice.  Click on the picture to see it large at its flickr page.

Posted by rcarreon at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The Ponte Estaiada Otavio Frias de Oliveira has quickly become one of the most significant Sao Paulo landmarks.  Enjoy here a widescreen format version of it (16:9 ratio).  You can click on the picture to see it in large or see more beautiful pictures of Sao Paulo.

Posted by rcarreon at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A kid's Pizza Parlor is probably one of the last places you will go to shoot great photos.  Think again, there are many lights colors and movement you can capture there.  Here are some pictures from my 9 year old birthday party at one such place.  Click on any of them for its flickr page.

 More picture to come soon.

Posted by rcarreon at 03:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This scene caught my attention while walking through the beach at Lagoinha beach at the north end of Florianopolis.  Five people, each different and each in different activities were standing close, but actually making completely different things.  The kid in the front is particularly oblivious to the rest of the people playing with his board.

See more pictures of people at the beach at my Beach Candids flickr set.

Posted by rcarreon at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For all my close friends that have followed me over the last few years, you know that the end of last year was a period of intense change in my life.  I got married for a second time, I changed jobs leaving my 9.5 year old job at Intel and I decided to stay in Brazil instead of moving to the US with Intel.  During all of this time this blog was really quiet as I was really busy reinventing myself.

Now it's time to start up again.  I have joined Comptel, a Finnish Company that is a leader in the field of software to support operations for Telcos.  I am running the operations for the company in the Americas.  My job continues to require me to travel through the Americas and I get to experience interesting situations and capture many wonderful photos of our continent as a side benefit.  I am also in much more contact with Europe, having a chance to visit several places in the old continent in the last couple of months.

I will go ahead and try to make come changes to the blog.  For one thing, I will include more of my photos that have become hugely popular in flickr.  My flickr pages and photos now have surpassed the 2 Million visit mark and are visited by an average of more than six thousand people per day.  If you want to access my flickr page go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/carreon . I recently had a chance to visit Mobile World Congress in Barcelona so you can find many great photos there. 

In summary, I am happy to restart updating my blog now with many new things to share in my life.  I hope you all continue to join me and send me your feedback.  See you all around.

Posted by rcarreon at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I just uploaded several photos of people at the beach taken from far and above them.  Please click on the picture to see this an other pictures on my flickr stream.

Greetings from Turku, Finland.

Posted by rcarreon at 01:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)