After a couple weeks of overcast skies the sun shone today and we tried our hand at photography. We failed several times to get a suit, shirt, necktie and pocket square photo that didn't wash out, but we did get a snapshot below the waist. Here are dark brown quarter brogues, lilac socks with white polka dots and the trousers to a navy mohair suit. The flash, of course, lightens everything and the shoe on the floor is closer to the true color.
Mohair and wool mixtures make excellent suitings for San Francisco, and for temperate coastal cities generally. Air moves easily through the cloth, so quarter lined 10 ounce fabric doesn't start a man sweating in the sunshine. And the combination of the mohair with the bit of extra weight keeps the suit looking crisper than its tropical worsted relations.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Suits and Socks, Installment XI
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5 comments:
Will,
If you have it available, try taking your photos in front of a full length north facing window with the flash turned off. The indirect sunlight will be soft and falttering.
You can try the same outside too in a spot with a northern exposure. Set the aperture to wide open (f/2.8 or the like on your camera) and you should be able to blur out enough of teh backround so that it doesn't distract from your main subject.
Thank you for an interesting blog.
I read that you have a lot of gremlins in your camera. I think I know why...
Cameras work on the assumption that any scene they see reflects, on average, around 18% of the light that falls on it. This is not obvious in normal circumstances but when this presumption is incorrect, a badly lit picture is the result:
When you snap a photo of a dark suit, the camera will assume that the suit is sort-of medium gray and expose it accordingly and giving you a picture of a medium tone suit.
The solution is to either use what is called exposure compensation (i.e. tell the lightmeter to over- or underexpose a certain amount) or use exposure lock, where you point the camera at a more balanced scene lit by the same light and tell the camera to use settings appropriate for that scene for the next picture. Read up in your cameras' manual on exposure lock or compensation.
Another simple fix - set the shutter speed to lower than the camera reads when backlit.
Lovely, lovely site.
Will,
Nice looking socks. Because I have such a rigid personality, I have discovered that plain gray or blue socks suit me best. I would like to wear colorful socks like this but it is not in the cards for me.
Will,
I know nothing about cameras and, therefore, offer no guidance whatsoever on the matter. I do, however, like the ensemble.
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