An icy cold day in the Meatpacking District in Manhattan … and a brave model that insisted on going bare feet. That’s just a glimpse of the latest NYC Photog Shootout gathering that took place on Saturday. This shootout is part of the ongoing series of events arranged by Rob Nicholson. There were many familiar faces in today’s group amongst the new. Good opportunity to say hi to old friends, and make a few new ones.
As with the previous NYC shootout in June 2009 , I gave some instruction on some of the basics of manual off-camera flash to the groups. We worked with a Q-flash and a softbox (and sometimes without the softbox), and a bunch of Pocketwizards that I handed to anyone in the group who didn’t have. Strange thing – I ended up with one more pocketwizard than I started out with. Bonus! (Actually, if you were there and you’re missing one, let me know.)
It was a bit of the Wild West out there with the huge groups of photographers firing away.
The second group had an interesting addition to the shoot …
The final workshop of the year! And what a wild interesting ride it’s been the past two years with the workshops. Wonderful people that I’ve met; interesting cities and places .. and some adventures. (Those who attended last year’s workshop in Dallas, will remember the belligerent cowboy!)
The workshop in Dallas was a great way to end up this series of workshops – two fantastic models in an interesting venue, and a great group of people. As always, it felt really good seeing how things click into place for the photographers who attended. Thank you to everyone!
The image above was from the session where we played around with video lights. In this case, finally getting the two models together in a dramatic pose; then lighting them with a video light from either side. The sconce lighting on the walls then helped make the image more compelling that a bland background would have. A few tweaks in Photoshop, essentially bumping up the contrast and saturation, also helps give the image more impact.
I always like visiting Austin with its vibrant music scene and night life, so it was good to visit again. I also met up again with Juliana who was our model at last year’s workshop. That’s her crazy self there on the right-hand side of the image, along with her friend Tatiana who also modelled for us at the workshop.
Some techie details:
The photo was taken during the practical session where we work with manual flash (via speedlights in softboxes). In this instance we had both softboxes in use, one on each model. Both were set for the same output. The flash output was chosen such that the ambient light is under-exposed by a stop. It allows us to get clean controlled lighting on our models with the diffused flash. My final camera settings were: 1/250th @ f5.6 @ 250 ISO .. but I had to pull back the exposure in RAW by 1/3rd stop.
Thank you to everyone who attended – it was a nice group of people and it was great meeting all of you. Also, a thank you to our two models.
Regarding the workshops in general – The Austin workshop was the penultimate workshop of the year, and also the travelling workshops. Next stop is Dallas .. and then from next year, a restructured revamped 2-day workshop on lighting which will include more practical sessions with on-location lighting.
The recent flash photography workshop in Jupiter, Florida was one of the final workshops of this year. (There are still two coming up – Austin and Dallas.) The workshop material was the regular mix of seminar portions and practical sessions, going over technique and then putting it into practice.
The image above was from the session where we specifically look for the direction of light from our bounced flash. Just bouncing flash in an arbitrary direction might not give us the best results .. but being specific about the direction we want our light to come from, will be the key in getting superb results.
The settings aren’t all that important in the success of this image. It’s the direction of light that is essential with this simple portrait. The settings were chosen such that enough background light registers to give some seperation. With that in mind, there is a range of settings that could’ve worked .. with TTL flash technology taking care of the actual flash exposure.
Thank you to everyone who attended this workshop, and made it such a fun day. And a big thank you to our two models.
The near-penultimate workshop for this year was held in Atlanta yesterday, covering the range of topics relating to flash photography and lighting. As always, it was good to meet and work with a group of people – and then throughout the day, watch and experience everyone’s progress in getting more familiar with the subject. Thank you to everyone who attended!
For anyone who is interested in still attending one of the workshops this year, there are still three upcoming workshops – Palm Beach (FL), and Austin and Dallas (TX). From next year there will only be a series of 2-day workshops held in the NYC / NJ area.
And as usual with the workshop feedback posts, I always like to add a little bit of useful information for everyone else …
One of the final workshops for 2009, was the one held in Philadelphia in the prestigious Ritz hotel! Working inside the hotel and the surrounding areas, provided us with some stunning backdrops while photographing our models.
Still staying with the updated format with the flash photograph workshop, if I am guided by the response by those who attended .. then the workshop once again appears to have been a hit. I had a great time as well, and I am sure there will be a few interesting photographs surfacing again. Thank you again to everyone who attended, as well as our two models.
And as always with a report-back on a workshop, I like to add a little bit of useful info for everyone else. So, about the image above ..
The recent workshop in Boston area was held at the studios of LensProToGo in Concord, MA. (LensProToGo is the company I turn to whenever I need to rent equipmentfor a shoot.) Paul, the owner of the company, kindly allowed us access to the studio for the entire day.
As mentioned with previous report-backs, I’ve expanded the material covered, and gear used, with the workshops this year. Now in addition to working with flash, we also play around with video lights as our source of light. During the practical session here, we took our models outside while using video lights. By exploiting the widely different colour balance of the tungsten light compared to the existing shaded day light , we were able to create an interesting dynamic with the colours. Using video light on our model, and with our cameras set to Tungsten WB, the background becomes an interesting shade of blue – in this case mixed with the green colours of the foliage outside.
And as always, the lighting pattern from a video light is quite dramatic ..
Thank you to everyone who attended the workshop (and our models), who made it a hugely enjoyable day!
The third and last workshop for this year in the New Jersey and New York area, took place earlier this week. Still with the newer format, the workshop was very well received and gauging by response, would appear to have been a lot of fun for the attendees in addition to being informative.
As an example of some of what we played around with, here is an example from the practical session where we used areas outside to bounce flash off and use that to clean up the existing light. Working in the early evening in lower light levels, it becomes easier to get effective light from our speedlight even when bounced off the side of a building or other objects.
The flash photography workshop in Seattle was one floor up in the hotel from where Electronic Arts where holding a Community Day for a video game titled “Army of Two: The 40th Day“. A community Day is when a video game company (such as Electronic Arts) brings in some of their biggest fans, as well as bloggers and site owners to get an exclusive look at the game before it releases to the public.
As we were walking back from the session outdoors where we worked with manual flash and softboxes, it just seemed like a good idea to have our two models, Julia and Jamei, join the two characters from Army of Two for an impromptu session there in the hotel lobby.
For the techies amongst us who would want to know about the lighting .. the lighting was with two softboxes at 90′ from each other. The one softbox was on my left, and close to me. The other was 90′ from me to my right, pointing at the models and beleaguered warriors. Each softbox had a speedlight, with the one to my right set to twice as much power as the one to my left.
As for the wild child Julia sprawled there on the ground .. um, yeah .. that’s all Julia. No direction needed!
Here are some other favourite images from the workshop ..
I have already posted some tasty images from this workshop, where I showed a comparison between bounce flash and video light. In a way the Portland workshop felt like a continuation of the UK and Ireland workshops .. a great venue; a great group of people with genuine excitement for the material covered in the workshop, and it all just clicked in place for myself and everyone there.
Aside from the images already shown in that post, here is another favourite image of one of our models, Crystal. This was taken during the session in the early evening where we went outside, and used some of the found surfaces to bounce flash off. The trick here is to find that combination of bouncable surface, a good background, and then to position your model so that the additional light from the flash adds to the final image.
What I like about this image is how the sign (and the reflection of the sign) outside the hotel creates a halo around Crystal.
[ click on the image to see a larger version ]
Here is the image without flash, and also a pull-back image to see what surface I bounced the flash off ..
