Images from lighting workshop

[texxter]

On Fri and Sat I worked with a phootographer from out of town interested in learning lighting one-on-one with me, experimenting with different lighting situations, and solving technical problems. We did four sessions: one male athlete in studio, one male gymnast on location, one male on location, editorial style, and one female on location. The main focus of the workshop was to learn how to create what I call "soft and dramatic" light for portraits. This means low key with soft gradations of light.

While I helped quite a bit with concept development and lighting design, Bob, my student, was the only one shooting during the two days. He appreciated being able to learn by doing, as opposed to using a "this is how it's done" approach.

Above is one of the images from the second session, done in a gym with fluorescent light and ugly walls. We used cross lighting to achieve an artistic effect while freezing motion with two strobes with gridded softboxes.

Bob will be sending me a few images next week, as they are all on his cards. Only have this one for now, but I will be a few more from all four sessions next week, hopefully.

[Ernst-Ulrich Schafer]

Pretty Sweet Paco!

[texxter]

Thanks, Ernst. It took work to get this image.

[rph]

That's a pretty impressive shot, on its own. Even more so with the backstory. Looks like a good learning session!

[texxter]

Thanks, Paul. Here are some more details about the challenges. First, we wanted to freeze motion, and needed the right strobes to do that - the Einsteins worked really well, as their flash duration in "Action" mode are extremely short below 200ws or so. Second, we wanted to avoid any light hitting the background walls, which were about 20 ft. away. The problem we faced was that the background wall was partially mirrored, and it picked up light coming from the softbox mount - and, because the model was lit, it picked up the model as well. We started with the model being reflected on a mirror 20 ft. behind him. A cool effect, but not what we had in mind. It was obvious that as long as the model was lit and the mirror was there, his reflection was going to be captured. We had to move about 6 large foam blocks, to cover the mirrored wall, and that finally solved the problem.

Next was the chalk in the air. Chalk used by the athlete was not enough to be registered, and also it was not in the path of the backlight. We had to add chalk powder while he was doing his event. Didn't get it right the first couple of time, but we couldn't do the event more than four times as the gymnast would get exhausted from multiple repetitions.

Light stands placement was also a challenge because much of the gym floor is covered with mats, which don't make a stable, safe surface for lights. But the further away the lights were from the subject, the more action-stopping capabilities would suffer, or more noise we'd introduce in the dark background by raising ISO. We had to move stuff to find a place to set the stands. That was work.

Those were some of the initial challenges - the pummel horse made it easier to predict where his body was going to be than the vault or the floor, so, from that point of view, it was relatively easy to get a decent composition.

It was good learning, and we were all happy with the results.

[groovyone]

Very impressive! I love the cloud of chalk dust.

[DigMe]

Cool pic! I love shooting these types of lighting.

brad

[texxter]

Keith, Brad, thank you for your comments!

[texxter]

Here is another image from the workshop - the last session with a female model. We were going for "soft dramatic" light with a minumum of equipment and fuzz.



Technical details:
D700 with either 70-200mm or 28-70mm (dont recall) at 70mm, 1/250s f/6.3 ISO200. Lighting was provided by a single Photoflex large softbox to camera left, fairly close to the subject. Fill was a regular 32" white reflector to camera right. Background is a brown door.

[cstewart1977]

Great job Paco! Cross lighting a dude with muscles like those gives great results. I'm gonna have to take myself up to Plano for a lesson as well:)

[texxter]

Thanks for the kind comments, Chris! Hahaha, not sure you need a lesson from me!