I was enjoying the “holiday” in last few weeks and very lazy updating the blog.

with only a few photo sessions in august, I had more free time to clean up the photo editing and album backlogs. Apart from it, really enjoyed the extra time I had with shulin. We went to different playgroups (little gym, ballet junior …. …) or went to swimming everyday – this was such a wonderful time (you can see some photos and video on my facebook fans page) !!!!

Before writing this blog, I was packing my equipments to prepare the photo session tomorrow – the bar mitzvah party of hugo. This is the kick-off of the peak season and my schedule was fully packed before the Chinese new year. Hopefully, I can update the blog more frequently in this season … …

In this and the next few posts, I ‘d like to share some photo techniques that I frequently use

I love shooting in available light, especially on a wedding day. But I also use a lot of off-camera flash, especially during the portrait sessions.

Here is an example – the bar mitzvah portrait session for hugo I did early this month. This is one of my fav image of the day – I love his expression a lot. You may think we had wonderful sunset light in this shot … …but … …

click here to see how this photo was created.

but, in fact, the light was created by a large  softbox held by Canly (as you can see in the 2nd photo). In the 3rd photo, the flash is off, and Hugo ‘s face was in shade actually. There was sunlight in the photo, but the sun was at the opposite side of the camera and it gave a rim light to hugo. The tricks here are , we have to control the power, the color and softness of the flash carefully, so that it can mix with the sun light well and make the light look natural.

more other techniques will be shared in next few posts. Any comment is welcome.