Personal Project; People At Work; John Siskin’s On The Job Page 2
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I use a wide-angle zoom almost exclusively for this kind of work. One reason is that I don’t like to change lenses in a dusty environment. I also do it because when I am close to the work my shot will be more three-dimensional. Too often, people use a zoom lens to bring the subject closer when they should walk up to the subject. Remember, a wide-angle lens will do a better job of separating the subject and the background. So if I am shooting a bulldozer, I will stand as close as I can and use a wide-angle lens. This gives the shot a much more powerful look.
I do a good deal of post-processing. There are a lot of things you can do at a shoot, but you can’t always do everything. I like to leave a little room at the edges of my frame. I may want to straighten an image or even crop a horizontal image from one that began as a vertical shot. In addition to cropping, I do saturation, perspective, and whatever else seems useful. The idea is to make a shot the business can use, whether for web, print, or any other purpose.
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John Siskin is a commercial and fine art photographer who specializes in making architectural images as well as product, macro, and portraiture photographs. He has taught photography for more than 20 years. He is currently teaching "An Introduction to Photographic Lighting" and "Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio" at BetterPhoto.com. His first book, "Understanding and Controlling Strobe Lighting" (Amherst Media), comes out in the fall. His website is www.siskinphoto.com.
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Author’s Note
I would like to thank Terry Beeler & Son General Contractor, Inc. You can see more of my construction photography on their website at: www.beelerbuildsembetter.com.
Toolbox
For these shots I used a Kodak Professional DCS PRO 14n with a Nikkor 18-35mm lens and a Tokina AT-X 28-70mm lens. I also used Norman 200B strobes. Since these shots are outside, I had the strobe on a bracket and a reflector with a glass dome diffuser. I also kept a set of barn doors on the light to give me a little more control.
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