May 19th Lighting Workshop Wrap Up part I

May 24, 2012

May 19th’s Lighting Workshop at the Hampton Roads Convention Center was a huge success! We had a great turn out.

We had a total of:

18 photographers
9 models
6 stylists (makeup, hair, wardrobe)
3 of my friends that assisted
3 lighting setups
and a whole lot of lights!

I normally start my workshops with a slideshow of various images with music to get everyone pumped and inspired, but this time I decided to skip the music and show the images one by one and ask everyone to guess how each image was lit. I thought this would be a good exercise to get people to analyze an image, see where the highlights and shadows are placed, see the differences between hard light, soft light, images that involved multiple lights, one light, and also just natural light. I thought this exercise was a good segue to my lighting presentation that covered lighting principles, lighting equipment, and lighting techniques. After the presentation we had a quick lunch which we enjoyed outside and then it was time to light. We setup 3 lighting stations.

1. Dark gray backdrop with 4 strobes. I used a beauty dish or Octabox for the front key light, 2 stripboxes, as the rear accent lights, and a small gridded cone reflector to add a nice gradient to the backdrop. This setup is great to create dramatic effects with lots of depth and dimension.
2. White backdrop with one strobe. I used a small cone reflector to mimic sunlight. This setup is great to mimic sunlight. It creates a harsh, tight shadow behind the model.
3. I used the projector screen as the 3rd backdrop. This was setup with a 86″ parabolic umbrella with 3 Canon 600EX-RTs. I use the Lastolite Triflash that accommodates 3 flashes. Only one flash is needed but I used 3 to conserve battery power from each flash to get faster recycle time.

Here are some of my shots.

Model: Khalilah | MUA: Makeup by Brazil | Hair: Ashley Smith

Lighting Station 1 – Octabox has the key light, 2 stripboxes as the rear accent light. The 4th strobe for the background light was not used for this shot.

1D Mark IV with 135mm f/2L (f/3.5, ISO100, 1/250)

Model: Sydney | MUA: Makeup by Brazil | Hair: Chelsea Styles

Lighting Station 2 – One strobe with a 7″ cone reflector

1D Mark IV w/ 24-70mm f/2.8L (f/5.6, ISO100, 1/250)

Model: Madeline | MUA: KristineMarie Makeup Artistry | Hair: Chelsea Styles

Lighting Station 2 – One strobe with a 7″ cone reflector

1D Mark IV w/ 24-70mm f/2.8L (f/6.3, ISO100, 1/250)

As you can see, you can use this lighting setup for something edgy like Sydney’s shot above or something bright and fun like Madeline’s shot below

Model: Allie | MUA: Arielle Davis | Hair: Chelsea Styles

Lighting Station 3 – three 600EX-RT mounted on a Lastolite Triflash fired into a 86″ parabolic umbrella

1D Mark IV w/ 85mm f/1.2L II (f/1.6, ISO100, 1/250)

I also took some other shots that weren’t a part of the 3 stations that I setup.

Model: Sandra | MUA: Makeup by Brazil

One 600EX-RT in ETTL + .3 flash compensation triggered with ST-E3-RT

5D Mark III w/ 50mm f/1.2L (f/2, ISO250, 1/125)

Model: Amber | MUA: Makeup by Brazil | Hair: Chelsea Styles

One strobe inside a 50×50″ Westcott JS Apolo softbox

1D Mark IV w/ 85mm f/1.2L II (f/1.6, ISO100, 1/200)

Model: Allie | MUA: Arielle Davis | Hair: Chelsea Styles

Shutter drag with one light, 1/10 second shutter speed.

Next week I will post some images taken by the photographers who attended the workshop so make sure to check back because some of those images were awesome. My next scheduled Lighting Workshop is on July 14th. It’s an Outdoor Lighting Workshop during sunrise at the beach. You won’t want to miss this one.