[Photographer Profile] #21 Splinters

#1 · 30-10-2013 12:53pm #1

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Hi folks, Im Dave Kavanagh (Splinters was an old band I was in many moons ago) and I'm super honoured to be asked to write up a profile. A huge thanks to Patrick (superflyninja) for asking me to do this.

Ok well I'm 32 years old and only really had a huge focus on photography over the last 4 - 5 years or so. I've always been interested in creative arts, music being my first love for most of my life. It was while attempting to put a band together roughly 5 years ago the drummer I was working with suggested we do a really high end polished music video. Me being me, rather then looking for people to work with decided to learn how to do everything myself. I started reading up on editing, lighting, cameras, lens, even took a huge interest in 3d modelling and rendering for a while. After I read everything I could lay my hands on I picked up a Canon 550D and a few cheap prime lens and got stuck into it.

The video never got made, however it did leave me with a huge interest in visual arts, an area that I had only ever had a passing interest in previously. I gravitated towards music photography initially as this seemed the perfect way to combine my interests.

I was really enjoying the music photography but the more and more I took an interest in lighting and the ways it could be used to sculpt a shot, the less I felt I was able to practically apply this to shooting live bands. Its still something I love doing, but just found too many times I was at the mercy of inhouse venue lighting and was unable to exercise a lot of the lighting techniques I wanted to try.

I took a short break for a while, upgraded a lot of my equipment, camera body, lens etc and had a long think about what I wanted to shoot. Every tutorial, book and article placed a heavy focus on learning what you love to shoot and focus on it and this was something that still eluded me. I did try quite a few other types of photography over the last few years, landscapes, abstract etc and had great fun doing so but none of it really felt like it was "my thing" if that makes sense.

Initially I was reluctant to get into fashion and portraits as it was a totally alien world to me, but all the lighting techniques I learnt just seemed right to be applied in this arena so I thought Id give it a try. Much to my suprise I loved it. I was able to put into practice all the things I had been reading up on, and really help me realise what it is I really enjoy shooting. I thought initially it was just musicians but really what it is, is interesting people.

Thats still mostly what I shoot today, portraits, fashion and still occasionally musicians.

Thats pretty much where I am now. I've a few things coming up I'm pretty excited about. A few well known publications and designers have expressed an interest in working with me so hopefully something cool comes out of that. I'm also off to Paris in January for a week of shoots over there. To tie in with the Paris trip I'm also running a competition on my facebook page and website to take a model over there for a shoot which should be fun.

Its certainly been a strange and fun filled few years since really getting into photography. All made possible by an incredibly supportive girlfriend (cheers Jen) and my family. In no small way, its changed a lot of aspects of my life. A lot of my friends, my social life, my goals and my general outlook on life I owe largely to photography.

All from the idea of creating a music video, that never was made :P

Thanks for reading folks

AnimalRights · 30-10-2013 1:55pm

I prefer ur music to ur model shots and I like very few music shots on these boards.

superflyninja · 31-10-2013 12:09pm

My pleasure! Really digging your fashion/strobist stuff.

FoxT · 31-10-2013 4:34pm

Some great photographs there, thank you!

Would you mind telling us a bit about your PP/Workflow? Do you rely more on lighting or PP to achieve the effects above?

thanks,
-Foxt

Splinters · 31-10-2013 5:22pm

No problem at all. I typically try to do as much in camera as I can. I love using both warm and cold coloured gels on my rear lights and often try to position them just out of frame so I deliberately get a bit of a flare. With the coloured gels especially it just gives a nice cinematic look. You can see the orange and blue tints on the last shot there. Thats actually quite a subtle example as I often use it quite a lot more noticably.

As for pp production I typically jump in between Lightroom and Photoshop on every edit. I shoot in RAW religiously so Lightroom would be where I'd do the majority of my edits. It can vary depending on the shot but as a rule some of the main adjustments Id make on most images would be...

Relatively strong S curve to increase the highlights and darken the shadows. This is done every single shot. I probably should create an import preset with this as its done without fail on every single shot. RAW is amazing but can look very flat until you start tweaking it.

I often tint the shadows slightly blue or green. Sometimes this is done in Photoshop, sometimes Lightroom. It really depends. Sometimes not at all. I do like the look it gives however it needs to be subtle. Ill admit theres been many a shot where I've overdone this but Im trying to keep it to a much lesser degree these days.

I almost always pull the saturation right back too. I'm not a fan of overly saturated images and especially with some of the adjustments I make (hard contrast s curve, colour tint to shadows etc) then it really can push the saturation into nasty territory. Typically Ill pull the contrast slider right back and slowly increase it, then stop as soon as it starts to look right.

In photoshop I'd typically use the content aware spot removal tool to get rid of any unwanted blemished, spots etc and after thats done give an image a quick pass through with Imaginomic's Portraiture plugin on its lowest setting. Its an amazing plugin for helping with skin softening but far too easy to over do it too so Id typically use this on the full image, then mask out only the areas I need it on. Then pull back the opacity of that layer to 50 or 60 percent.

The only other thing Id do on a lot of images lately is add noise. It might sound odd but Ive been really liking the film like quality that noise can add to a shot. I shoot with a 5D mkII most of the time and at ISO 100 you get a wonderfully clean image. Thats a good thing of course but sometimes the images can be a bit too clean or digital looking. Adding in a bit of noise (Id usually do this bit in Lightroom) can really add a nice film look to a shot and give it character. Also as a nice bonus it can give the illusion of skin detail if you've gone too far with skin softening.

A final step would be to do a bit of dodging and burning with a 50% grey layer in soft light blend mode in photoshop. Theres a ton of different ways to do this but this particular method is something I seen Lara Jade do on a tutorial video and works extremely well. You can create a nice easy photoshop action to create the layer for you too so it saves time. Again this is just to exagerate whats already there. Highlights go lighter, shadows go darker so theres more contrast and for me at least I get a better looking image.

kevc2 · 01-11-2013 3:46pm

I love the pictures, can you tell me if you have a standard light setup that you would use on each photoshoot or is it completely different each time?

Splinters · 03-11-2013 12:22pm

I'd use a similar light setup for a lot of shots alright. I sometimes have to change it up because of location constraints, not being able to position lights in certain places etc. Its usually similar enough though.

The main thing is never ever ever ever use on camera flash. I just hate that look. I know some situations dont allow positioning your own off camera flashes, but Id honestly rather boost the ISO and shoot natural light in those situations. If its so dark that thats not an option Id rather not take pictures in that case. I really cant stress how ugly I think on camera flash is

My key light is usually placed around 45/50 degrees to camera right or left from the model, and positioned high enough that the botton of my softbox/umbrella is typically level with the subjects eyes. That puts the light source high enough to get a nice directional light but still low enough to get a catch light in the subjects eyes.

I always try to cross light too. Some locations/setups dont allow for this, if the subject is flush against a wall for example. My rear/rim light is then placed pretty much 45 degrees behind the model on the opposite side to the key light. I often put a gel on this flash to give it a bit more character.

The main thing about this setup is that it doesnt completely flush the subject with light. Im usually looking for one side of the face to be perfectly exposed while the other falls slightly into shadow. I must admit Im a big fan of shadows, and they can be very complientary to a model too as they help define the contours of a face.

Hope thats some help

inkedpt · 09-11-2013 5:35pm

Some very good work there Splinters. Have seen your work before, the b&w lake shot is great.
Good luck!

Ricardo

[Photographer Profile] #21 Splinters

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