Enhance Your Photography with High-Quality Brick Photography Floordrops.

Create Picture-Perfect Moments with Concrete Photography Floordrops.

Unleash Your Creativity with Stone Photography Floordrops!

Get Floored by the Spectacular Tile Photography Floordrops Experience!

Elevate Your Photography Experience with Exquisite Wood Floordrops

Questions? Call Us 1-800-844-5616

Questions? Call Us 1-800-844-5616

This section doesn’t currently include any content. Add content to this section using the sidebar.

Image caption appears here

Add your deal, information or promotional text

For Denny – Quick Tip Jan 2025 Blog

For Denny – Quick Tip Jan 2025 Blog

By Gary Bernstein

 

    Let’s start this out with a bit of history. I am in the process of going through old photo sessions for a variety of new projects. I found these – and in fact, just sent these photographs and the full story to Denny himself. I was bragging on just how long I have been using Denny products ;)! It made both of us laugh (and feel old (no…really, we don’t feel old at all ;))…

    Part of this will appear in my forthcoming book of anecdotes about my crazy life in photography.

    It was 1974 (!) and I was shooting a fashion catalog for Neiman Marcus in my Park Avenue South studio in New York City, when Prince Egon von Furstenberg (yes, he was Diane VF’s husband), model Pat Amari, Errol Wetson (the hamburger magnate) and his fiancé--legendary actress-model Margaux Hemingway (granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway) stopped in to see me…

Photographs © Gary Bernstein . All Rights Reserved

…before we left for dinner at Elaine’s (Google it if you care to)…here is the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine%27s

    I put the 4 of them into all black outfits to shoot a “1974 selfie” even though I wasn’t in the shot ;) – on 6 x 6 black and white negative film in a Hasselblad camera on a tripod with an 80mm Zeiss lens. Notice the use of Denny posing blocks and adjustable stools!

    The shot was made using a single flash head in an umbrella on a boom stand with 2 background lights washing out a Denny canvas background.

    Below is the image that we liked best – that has been republished many times (and apparently “stolen” below in a recent article I found on Prince Egon). The only difference in terms of camera technique was the use of a 150mm Sonnar lens on the camera to flatten the image and compress the background. You need a lot of depth-of-field for this.

Let’s move on with another tip:

 

Session 6 – Actor’s Photo Session


Shot 4-30

Light Source: Two Hot Lights

Location: Home Environment

Camera: 4 and 6 MB Digital Cameras with Zooms (short telephoto)

Shot 4-30

 

    The classic line “I’d rather be lucky than good” has been attributed to many people, but they certainly are words to live by. Here is a variation on a theme from me: Classic faces are very often the key to classic pictures (and the more classic the subject (by contemporary commercial standards) the easier the shoot, and the less sophisticated the lighting required, and the more direct and simple the photographic approach).

    Shot 4-30 uses the most basic of all lighting called butterfly. It is created by placing a spotlight above the camera at about a 30-45 degree angle to the subject. It is precisely the same lighting placement as what I used on the 4-shot in 1974 with the classic group in New York City. The result creates the v-shadow beneath the nose and a 12 o’clock catch light in the eyes. When the intensity of the subject (and the attitude captured) compliments the intensity of the lighting, a dynamic result is achieved. A second spot was placed behind the subject to lighten the background.

    The exact same key lighting was used for Shot 4-31, only this time against an open door. You have a choice when balancing subject against a background. In this case, I opted to overexpose the background so it didn’t compete with the viewer’s ability to focus on the subject. I used the exact same lighting to produce this portrait of mogul Ted Turner of Turner Broadcasting, etc. etc.

Photograph of Ted Turner © Gary Bernstein . All Rights Reserved

 

Shot 4-31

Light Source: One Hot Light

Location: Home Environment

Camera: 4 and 6 MB Digital Cameras with Zooms (short telephoto)

Shot 4-31

 

Session 7 – An Actor with his Bride to Be


Shots 4-32 and 4-33

Light Source: One Hot Light and two silver reflectors

Location: Home Environment

Camera: 4 and 6 MB Digital Cameras with Zooms (short telephoto)

Shot 4-32

More to come on this session next month…

Happy New Year! Happy Shooting!

Gary Bernstein

Search our collections