Studio lighting workshop. With models!

[priller]

I went to a workshop on Sunday afternoon that was sponsored by the local Austin chapter of Flickr and The Strobist. If you're not familiar with the Strobist web site, you should really check it out if you have any interest at all in flash lighting. That sight has sort of launched a mini revolution in affordable studio lighting, using smaller remote controlled flashes instead of the usual big studio lights. It's all about low cost/high quality lighting solutions. You'll spend hours there.

http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/

This workshop was less about the gadgets and more about taking photos and working with lighting setups and directing models. I had never done any of this before, a complete newbie, and quickly got overwhelmed. So I decided to just focus on faces. I found it was too much for me to try to get bodies and faces and backgrounds all working in the little time we had to shoot.

Really had no idea what I was doing, I'm just happy a few turned out.

Here I was trying to do something "different" and make Jessa look taller (she was tiny, 5' 1" at the most). Not too good.




After that I decided to stick to faces. I had seen photos of her before, loved her freckles. Unfortunately her makeup was covering them up somewhat. You can still see them a little.






This is Zion. She's an experienced model and it showed. She was terrific! I just concentrated on her face and snapped away. Afterward when I was looking at them they were all great. Every one! Very hard to choose favorites.










I think I posted earlier that I had recently got a new Nikon D300. It's 12.2 MP and the resolution is just crazy. The above photo is already cropped a bit. This is what it looks like at 100%, with just a little sharpening applied:




The next model was Carol. Her husband Garrett is also a model and was there with her. I really didn't like most of their photos. This was the only one I thought turned out okay:




The last model was Michelle, who is a relative beginner at modeling. By the time we got to her my head was pounding from all the flashes, so I asked her to go outside in the courtyard, which had some nice indirect light coming in.





Soon a lot of other people gathered around and, since we weren't using flashes at this point, they all started shooting. Confused the poor girl, she didn't know who to look at. I backed up and took this:



I'm sure Michelle was as tired as she looks in this photo. 5 hours straight of modeling. The girls were real troopers. BTW, ISO 1600 on this one:




This was actually the first photo I took that day. One of the scruffy photogs there for the workshop.



He clued me in on the main thing you need to know about using flash -- there are actually 2 exposures going on - the main lit subject, and the background. Since the flash is so much faster than your shutter speed, the shutter doesn't affect the subject's exposure at all. The subject's exposure is affected by flash strength and aperture. But the shutter does affect the background/ambient light. You can slow down shutter speed to get more ambient light without affecting the main subject's exposure at all. Or you can use a faster shutter speed to cut out all ambient and get a dark background.

Very interesting!

After the shoot I went home and my step-son Nick came over. I was still in a portrait kind of mood, so I took this one. No flash, just natural light:

[Blue_In_AK]

1. Beautiful shots, Priller...

You could publish any one of these. :thumbsup:

[alfredo]

2. Very good work.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

3. welcome to the strobist revolution

not to be confused with the ron paul revolution...

[Maestro]

4. Beautiful shots!

The models look like they were having fun. I may be wierd but I really like the one of the scruffy photog. :)

[priller]

5. I do, too.

I like all the details in his face. A lot of the people there were trying to do more fashion-style poses. I really don't have any interest in that. I guess I like a more natural style.

[JeffR]

6. priller, these are great.

I've had to do a little people shooting professionally recently, and I really have a hard time getting comfortable with it. I can put the subject at ease well enough, but I can't silence the screaming voice in my head that says, "You can't do portraits!"

You've got it nailed, and this is far from the first time you've proved that here. Well done.

[priller]

7. Thanks!

That means a lot. I do enjoy making portraits, which is kind of odd, because I'm not really a "people person" or particularly outgoing at all. But I find faces fascinating.

[priller]

8. Broken links -- fixed here

Two of the links got broken above. Here are the updated photos: