Pinball photo study w/ Adora Tokyo!
I’ve been shooting for 16 years and during that time, I’ve developed a unique eye for available light photography. At some point during that conversation, a friend or colleague will inevitably say “Oh! I love natural light.”, but there’s a distinction between “natural light” photography and “available light” photography, which I’ve coined OPEN LIGHT [click to join our Facebook group].
The difference is, natural light typically refers to the sun. Shooting outside on a nice overcast, cloudy day. Available light refers to, basically, whatever you have. That can be as minimalistic as a table lamp in a dark bar. There’s a lot of magic in available light photography, and it’s tempting for many photographers to bring in strobes and light boxes to lift that out; I urge you to resist!
In a future blog post, I’m going to go deep in to how I met my mentor, renowned documentary photographer Jim Gavenus, and how he influenced my style. It took me over 10 years to develop my own style with this approach to photography, but it was worth it. It’s incredibly liberating to make moody, sometimes haunting imagery in any setting, any where in the world. No equipment other than my camera body and lens.
As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, I am currently transitioning from photography to comic book design but I still love the medium. My good friend, celebrity make-up artists and DJ, Adora Tokyo was in Minneapolis this week, visiting from Atlanta, and she contacted me about a shoot. I’ve shot with Adora once before, two years ago, but I had an awful flu and despite my best efforts I felt my work fell short of my personal standard.
We only had a couple days notice; fortunately Adora is drop dead gorgeous, stylish as fuck and handles her hair and make-up like the pro she is. I told her to meet me at Caffetto coffee shop in uptown Minneapolis, my usual locale of choice for editing sessions. It’s dark, eclectic and has a big basement with pinball machines. A very 70’s feel.
Here are a few photos from last night’s collaboration. These were only lit with what we had in the room […my approach is about bringing the model to the light sources available, rather than vice versa]. The overhead light, and the pinball machines. The rich, saturated tones are amazing, and available light photography works so well with black skin, and men and women of color.
I absolutely encourage any photographers reading this to get out and experiment with available light photography. Just take your camera body and find dark, dimly lit spaces and see what you can create. It takes decades to perfect, but it’s a style all it’s own.
If you're a photographer, I'll be posting new and select work as well as deeper blogs about the OPEN LIGHT photography approach, etiquette within the industry and career strategies. I post every day here on Steemit. Follow me!
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She's got such a supple wrist.
These look great, looking forward to the open light post.
Thanks @solar! Yeah, that'll have to be a series, but there's a lot of great information, almost completely the opposite direction that most people teach and learn photography.
you can try to catch some light inside japanese night club,that should be a lot attractive. feel free to check my post and upcoming novel.
Super cool, the light on the first two is brilliant, you would swear it was designed.
Beautiful work as always and awesome viewpoint on lighting! I have seen more photographers look to bring light in than use what is available.