recap: Flash photography workshops – New Jersey / NJ (2015)

The format of the flash photography workshops that I present, are constantly evolving. Gradual changes as I adapt the program to be fluent. Always with the ideal that anyone who attends will see a marked improvement in their understanding and use of flash, and on-location lighting.

I wanted to give a glimpse again of one of these workshops – in this case a Personal Workshop attended by two photographers, with Adrienne as our model. The tempo of the workshop is nice and relaxed, giving everyone time to shoot and practice, and let it all sink in. There are also hugely funny moments …

The on-location part of this workshop was on the grounds around Lambert Castle, and there is a family with kids walking by, and we overheard him ask, “but where is the princess?” Of course, no one knew … but then our model, Adrienne, who had just changed into a long flowing dress, came sweeping in. So we went over to call the kids, “Here’s the princess!” This just made their day! Adrienne hammed it up as well, waving them over and talking to them.

The little boy asked, “Where’s the king?”

Without skipping a beat, Adrienne replied, “Oh, he’s sleeping inside the castle. You know how kings are.”

 

More about the photography workshops

As the workshop presenter, I don’t shoot as much – mostly concentrating on making sure everyone is set up, and are getting the best from the workshop. But here are a  few example images that I took, and the pull-back shots.

camera settings: 1/180 @ f/5.6 @ 200 ISO … off-camera TTL flash
photo gear: Canon 6D;  Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L II;
Canon 600EX-RT Speedlite controlled by a Canon ST-E3 Speedlite Transmitter

Just a touch of fill-flash to make sure that there aren’t dark shadows under Adrienne’s eyebrows.

The softbox setup here takes two speedlights – ideal to have photographers with different systems shoot together. The specific speedring and softbox are described here: updated gear for the flash photography workshop.

• Adrienne’s website / Model Mayhem portfolio

 

camera settings: 1/180 @ f/11 @ 100 ISO … bare off-camera manual flash
photo gear: Canon 6D;  Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L II;
Canon 600EX-RT Speedlite controlled by a Canon ST-E3 Speedlite Transmitter

Here we were applying the Sunny 16 rule and the flash Guide Number to get to correct ambient and flash exposure.

The flashes are pointing directly at Adrienne – I had swiveled the softbox out of the way, in case you’re confused why the softbox is pointing sat the castle’s wall.

 

camera settings: 1/200 @ f/5.6 @ 500 ISO … off-camera TTL flash
photo gear: Canon 6D;  Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L II;
Canon 600EX-RT Speedlite controlled by a Canon ST-E3 Speedlite Transmitter

Just a touch of fill-flash again to get clean light on Adrienne’s face.

 

camera settings: 1/200 @ f/4 @ 800 ISO … off-camera TTL flash
photo gear: Canon 6D;  Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L II;
Canon 600EX-RT Speedlite controlled by a Canon ST-E3 Speedlite Transmitter

There was interesting side-light coming in through this entrance way – but the gradient of light was darker towards Adrienne’s face – so we mimicked the ambient light’s direction with the flash (in a softbox), to get directional light streaming through there.

 

camera settings: 1/180 @ f/5.6 @ 200 ISO … off-camera TTL flash
photo gear: Nikon D4;  Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 AF-S VR II;  Nikon SB-910 Speedlight

Back in the studio, we also stepped through the entire thought-process in how to use the histogram to get to correct exposure, and then apply fill-flash (as bounce flash), to get to flattering light on our model.

 

camera settings: 1/125 @ f/5.6 @ 400 ISO … studio flash bounced
photo gear: Canon 6D;  Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L II

With this section of the workshop, we confirmed how the direction of the light, and our subject’s pose, inter-related to give us either short lighting, or broad lighting.

 

Photography workshops

• More info about upcoming photography workshops.
• info about PersonalPhotography Workshops.
• Recap of previous photography workshops.