Thanks again for stopping by, hope you like my work. I am also on Flickr, Facebook and Twitter if you want to follow me and keep updated with any changes or special offers.

Wedding Photography Discounts Available

We are currently offering wedding clients and potential wedding clients discount wedding photography offers on a first come first served basis, these will only be available now and then. To keep notified of any wedding offers you can either follow my twitter stream (@petebarnesphoto) of our facebook profile (Pete Barnes Wedding Photographer) If you know anyone in the West Yorkshire region who has just got engaged and into social networking and want to be notified of any discounts, let them know!
Below is a quick FAQ about how our discount offers will work. Click more to see the FAQ

How will we know when an offer is on?
I will tweet it on my twitter stream and/or post it on my facebook page.

How often will there offers be on?
They will be available on a random basis, could be once a week, could be once a month.

Will there be more than one offer on at a time?
No.

How long will the offers run?
Until they are taken up by a confirmed booking.

What would be an example offer?
Something like 10% off for the next couple booking a 6 hour package.

Are all offers money off discounts?
No, we plan on doing a variety of offers such as a rainy day offer, where if it rains on your wedding day you could be eligible for free some prints or canvases.

So if I see an offer from your tweets or off your wall what do I do?
Contact me either by phone or email (contact page here) I will then let you know if you are the first person to accept this offer. If you are then you can either go ahead and book us or arrange to come and meet us and if you decide to book us the offer will be discounted on your contract.

Does the discount come off the deposit or the final amount?
The discount will come off the final balance, deposits still have to be paid in full to be counted as a confirmed booking.

I’m not getting married, can I still follow you on twitter/facebook?
Of course, I do wedding posts as well as photography posts as well as general musings, I try not to inform the world what I had for breakfast though because honestly, who cares.

What if I follow you on twitter, see an offer but I’m not getting married, but I have a friend who is?
Let them know about Pete Barnes Photography asap, of course if they were following us themselves they would receive the offers directly.

Finished shot edited in a retro style Off Camera Flash Tutorial

Hi folks, thought I would post a Photography tutorial about using off camera flash, I have got a wedding photography post to do but have been meaning to do this for a while so thought I would get to it. My models for this tutorial were the two Danbos (Big Dan and Little Dan), they are a photogenic couple, not overly talkative but Consummate professionals, they get the job done. This is the finished shot but I’ll post some setup shots and how I got to the finished article, after the jump.

OK, I don’t do many indepth tutorials so if this isn’t overly clear just add some comments and I’ll try and answer some questions. The gear I used for this was a Canon 5DII with a STE2 for controlling the flashes. You can use radio poppers or pocket wizards but for this tutorial I am doing everything in TTL which pretty much means the camera decides the flash levels. You can add exposure compensation to the flashes if they are too bright/dark. If you use Pocket Wizards you have to set flash powers manually, which is an important skill to have but that’s another tutorial! Other gear I used were 2 580EXII speedlights (430’s would also work as they have slaves for the STE2) I also had a lumiquest big bounce on one light and a home made grid on the other. I also used some gels which are just coloured plastic that change the colour of the light.
First thing I did was set my camera to M (manual) set the shutter to 1/200, aperture to f/2, ISO100 using a 50mm. The aperture was wide (f/2) as I wanted a thin depth of field. With a relatively fast shutter and low ISO I knew I would have very little ambient light coming through, so any light had to be provided by the flashes.

1. Test shot to make sure I have no (or little) ambient light Off Camera Flash Tutorial

Next I placed my models and lit them from a softbox (lumiquest big bounce) pretty much overhead, this would provide a nice soft light, this main light stayed here all shoot.

2. First Flash put in place, overhead softbox for diffused light Off Camera Flash Tutorial

I wasn’t overly happy with the angle and wanted to get a bit lower, no problem as they were on my desk but this would usually mean lying on the floor with the camera at ground level, if you had to do this outside the chances are it would be raining!

3. Change of angle to get a lower shooting position Off Camera Flash Tutorial

I don’t know where that burst of pessimism came from, how can you be negative when dealing with Danbo’s? Anyway after I was happy with the general setup I had to do something about that cluttered backdrop. Although the thin depth of field had blurred it out it was still noticeable and would only take a few seconds to move aside, it was only pens and paper. If this was a wedding the chances are it would have been a few people completely unconnected with the wedding just milling around in the background, for some reason they believe their presence somehow enhances the photograph, I beg to differ. Anyway back to the tutorial.

4. Scrap the cluttered background Off Camera Flash Tutorial

So with the background cleared I could have probably left it at that but I decided to bring in a 2nd light to act as some rim lighting on Big Dan. I must stress if you can get away with using one light that is perfectly fine, I just couldn’t get away with it this time.

5. Brought in a 2nd flash for some hard backlighting, which for some reason is in shot?!? Off Camera Flash Tutorial

Sometimes having the light in the frame works, a trick I have used during a few first dances but as the light is relatively large compared to the models, it being in the shot is just slack.

6. Backlight moved but I didn't like the shadows big dan cast on little dan Off Camera Flash Tutorial

After moving the 2nd light I noticed it made big dan cast a sharp shadow all over little dan’s face, not pretty. So I decided to turn the 2nd light on the back wall to create a spot light effect. I zoomed the flash to 105mm and added a homemade grid which really focuses the light, as seen below.

7. Decided to fix an grid on 2nd light and aimed it at the back wall Off Camera Flash Tutorial

I then changed my mind once again (or used my creative license) and decided I wanted to cast a shadow of them both on the wall so I moved the 2nd flash behind me and to the right.

8. Moved 2nd light to perhaps cast a dramatic shadow of the couple Off Camera Flash Tutorial

I recomposed the shot to put my subject to the side and make sure both shadows were included in the shot, otherwise it just looks like I used a dirty great on camera flash resulting in a dirty great slightly off centre shadow, which made me gip.

9. Repositioned the shot to make sure the shadow was captured Off Camera Flash Tutorial

As it seemed quite likely by this point that I was going to make this into a tutorial for my blog I thought I would gel the 2nd flash, I use a pale blue gel, my inspiration being that Man City were playing as I was taking these, I’m not overly interested in it but as we won 3-0 I thought I’d incorporate it into my photography (honest).

10. Added a pale blue gel to 2nd light to get some colour into the scene Off Camera Flash Tutorial

That Blue was a little too pale for my taste so I dialed down the exposure compensation on flash 2 to -1 this would dive a darker more saturated blue.

11. Brought down exposure compensation on 2nd light by 1 stop as it was too bright Off Camera Flash Tutorial

For some reason the softbox on the first light was creeping in to frame so I raised it up using the box set of Alfred Wainwrights Lakeland Fells, sure I have light stands but this was right there.

12. Moved first light as it was getting in the shot Off Camera Flash Tutorial

There was still a bit of unwanted shadow being cast but I wasn’t really liking the shadow cast by the couple idea, it seemed to just make a big diagonal line from bottom left to top right which wasn’t the best in terms of composition (I could have just swapped the Danbo’s round making some interesting triangles but I wanted to revisit the spotlight on the wall idea.

13. Scrapped the shadow idea but kept the gel, went back to lighting the back wall for a spotlight effect Off Camera Flash Tutorial

I thought I was on the right path with my original idea it’s always good to explore creative avenues if time permits, it’s not as if the Danbo’s had to get to there next engagement, they are plastic dolls that just live on the shelf. Anyway I was quite happy with this now but the slightest detail of little Dan not looking straight at big Dan was very important, I got the impression he was just doing a half baked impression of Rain Man.

14. Repositioned little Dan's head so it was actually looking at big Dan Off Camera Flash Tutorial

And that’s pretty much it, I imported it into lightroom where I toned it to give it a vintage retro style because I am quite into that at the moment. The whole process only took about 5 minutes but there are quite a few steps to get a pretty simple image but the more you as “what if I do this or that?” the better you get. I’ve posted the scene as it was in the end, I have no idea why I didn’t use the studio, sometimes it’s good to just have a mess about with the speed lights. I hope this tutorial has been informative and hopefully will give you a bit of inspiration to get out and take some shots. It’s worth noting that for those who don’t have a wireless transmitter, multiple flashes or a speedlight softbox, you could achieve a similar shot just with one flash and an off camera cord, I think canons one is about £40 and retains the auto TTL functions if you don’t want to get into manual flash. You could also get away with using a white piece of A4 paper or a big empty milk carton instead of the lumiquest big bounce.
If you have any questions or comments please don’t hesitate to post them.

15. The setup Off Camera Flash Tutorial

Outdoor relaxed portrait by Pete Barnes, West Yorkshire

Portrait photography post today folks, hopefully have some wedding stuff soon. We went to see some friends for a cuppa this afternoon and accompanied them to a local park with their daughter. As I had the camera I thought I’d give it another outing to see how it performed. It’s great to do some outdoor portrait photography when the weather is good and kids at a park are great subjects, they are really in their element so you get some great, natural expressions. Nothing especially clever about the lighting, just a late afternoon sun. These were a couple of my favorites taken with the 5DII and the 70-200 2.8 Lens. I have given them a bit of a boho vintage tinting although I stopped short of distressing the edges in photoshop, it’s just a bit of a change from black and white and as it was a late summers day it seemed to suit the mood, either that or I’ve been spending too much time in fatface! Anyway thanks for looking.

Portrait Photographer in Wakefield West Yorkshire

Portrait Photographer in Wakefield West Yorkshire

Portrait Photographer in Wakefield West Yorkshire

Just a quick post before I go to bed. I have recently bought a new camera body (Canon 5DII for the togs out there) and thought I’d get a few snaps of my niece & nephew. We went to a Pugneys near Wakefield as the weather was nice. They have a man made lake where the kids had just gone kayaking which I just missed which was probably a good thing as I have a tendency to be a bit risky with the gear and it would have more than likely ended up at the bottom of the aforementioned lake! Anyway the kids had a bit of a play about so I decided to test the new camera. All in all I’m very happy with it, although I’m not a great fan of the lens I was using (100-400mm if any togs are still reading) I’ve done a few low light shots and they look great. Combined with lightrooms new noise reduction I can get usable shots in near darkness. I have just read that back and I sound like a bit of a stalker but the churches can get quite dark, especially with the rubbish weather we have been having, so I was talking from a wedding photographer point of view. Anyway here are a couple that I liked, nothing fancy in lighting terms, just capturing moments. Thanks for reading.

GR10 Trail - A Long distance hike over 900kms over the Pyrenees from the atlantic to the mediterranean

We have raised quite a bit for Cancer Research but donations are always welcome, our just giving site is here if you would like to donate. All in all it was a great experience which I would recommend to anyone, I think if we tried anything like it again we would probably take a little less stuff! Anyway back to the wedding and portrait photography, which we love, if we could just find the couple who are getting married on top of a mountain!

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