recap: photography workshop – Jersey City & NYC (2010)
The final workshop for 2010 took place this week – the first day again located in Jersey City, with a spectacular view of Manhattan. The second day had a smaller group of photographers practicing on-location lighting techniques in Manhattan.
This striking image of Catherine, our model at the Monday workshop, was taken as a storm was slowly sweeping in. The background was intentionally under-exposed like this to give a dramatic quality to the final image. The light on her was from a softbox, placed to the camera right, and fairly high. I purposely asked our model, Catherine, to lift her gaze so that the light came in from an angle that didn’t give shadows under her eyebrows.
Settings: 1/250 @ f10 @ 200 ISO
TTL flash, wirelessly controlled from the on-camera speedlight; FEC at -0.7 EV
For the pullback shot here, I needed the flash to show the light falling on Catherine. Because the bright softbox included in the frame here would fool the TTL metering, I had to set the off-camera flash to manual output. If I had kept the off-camera flash to TTL mode, it would’ve pulled down the exposure for this image.
The second day of the workshop took place in New York, where a smaller group of us roamed around the Meat-packing District. We now put into practice everything we learned the previous day – off-camera flash (TTL and manual flash), bounce flash … and also looking at the direction and quality of the available light for some available light portraits. It all comes together as a better understanding of light in whatever way we choose to use it.
For this part of the workshop, we worked with Anelisa – always a wonderfully versatile model to photograph.
Off-camera TTL flash, controlled via an on-camera speedlight. I did have to edit in the over-bright left-hand side brickwork and door frame from another photograph where I had disabled the flash.
Settings: 1/200 @ f5 @ 400 ISO … FEC set to -1 EV
This image is from an indoor sequence where we practiced directional bounce flash with an on-camera flash.
Settings: 1/125 @ f2.8 @ 1000 ISO
A final example from the workshop, where we specifically photographed Anelisa with only the available light .. but positioning her for best effect.
Thank you again to everyone who attended and made this a fun workshop to present. A thank you as well to our models, Catherine, Carrie and Anelisa.
Photography workshops
- More info about upcoming photography workshops.
- Recap of previous photography workshops.
Neil,
Wanted to thank you for a wonderful time on Monday. I truly enjoyed the workshop and feel that my speedlight and I are much closer now. I’ve put a few things on order at B&H. Thanks again for sharing. Highly recommend this workshop.
Patricia
This workshop was FANTASTIC! Neil and Jess, what a pair…I can say this was the best workshop I’ve attended.
The second day in New York was the best..relaxed, laughs and learning…just great.
Thanks Neil!
(thanks for the drive to B&H Neil, what a store!!)
Thanks Neil for the fantastic site and tutorials. I was wondering how big of a softbox was used in the above images (image #1 and #2)?
Thanks for sharing.
Wilson .. it is the Lastolite EZYBOX 24×24″ softbox (affiliate).
Here is the the review of the Lastolite Ezybox softbox kit.
Neil vN
Hi Neil – I want to thank you so much for your wonderful training. You were a pleasure to learn from and Jess – an amazing assistant was fabulous. I know that I learned a ton and am really looking forward to using this new info for my future shooting. You guys are the best! Best, to you all – Laura
Thank You Neil! The workshop was great! Learned a lot…now I have to actually apply it and keep practicing!
Really impressive. Anelisa is definitely a goddess :-)
Her b&w portrait is one of your greatest shots, I’d dare to say!!
Neil,
We attended your May workshop and really enjoyed it. I believe it improved our photography. We photographed a wedding a month later in June, in exchange for a donation to JDRF. They were thrilled with the photos. I can’t tell you how excited we were when we learned that the client doubled the donation from what we agreed upon originally. I acknowledge their generosity, but I also believe that the principles you taught us really made a difference in the quality of the photos. I also thank you for making yourself available to answer lighting questions about their specific venue.