Fine Art Photography: Workshop with Christine Diaz

Fine Art Photography requires a very thorough process that turns an idea into a precise plan that includes execution and post processing. The plan consists in finding your subject, determining the style and scouting the location. During execution you decide your technical details, what lens to use, how to position flash and posing. Then the magic happens in post processing. When an image carries you away, it is thanks to the intentional and meticulous work done during post processing, mostly how you play with dodge and burn, with color balance and tone, saturation, gradient masks, crop and of course high end retouching when necessary.

The first image on top is taken with a 24mm. Distortion is less obvious but it looses some drama in composition, the dresses are not so stretched and the bodies resemble more the actual height. The second image is taken at 11mm. In reality the space was quite narrow and the rocks not so tall, but because of the extreme wide angle, everything is stretched, positioning the subject in the middle prevents it from being distorted. Thus you can get a quite extraordinary image out of an otherwise unambitious setting.

You can notice the same 11mm effect on these images. In order to create that effect of a never ending dress in the first image on top, I had to place myself so close to the subject I was basically touching her with my legs. Yet, it looks like I am standing feet away..

Can you guess this one above, 11mm or 24mm?

When you have gorgeous models and incredible locations, you should never stick to one lens or one focal length. Play around. The first image here on top was taken at 11mm, the secon at 70mm, and the third at 14mm.

Here we were playing with a softer and sweeter look, less drama more love, so we used a long lens, this image was taken at 105mm. Doesn’t this look like an enchanted field of beautiful flowers? It was actually what you would otherwise identify as weeds growing on the side of a parking lot in between an old wall, broken concrete and sand..

Christine Diaz came to SF, this mage is from the second workshop I did with her. We took images at a few different locations. The day went fast, 8 hours of work, plus endless hours at the computer..You look at this image and you think cute and maybe you also think it came out like that..

it took so much work to get to this. From the models to the lights, keeping people out of the way, not being kicked out from the courtyard, and then retouching, it was a huge endeavor.

I love the soft look you get with a 70-200mm.

Quite dramatic even if taken at 24mm. The architecture helps the effect.

Sweet 200mm

24mm