Hudson River Photography Workshops Last Images: Painting with Light & Using Studio Lights

We ended Week I of our first Hudson River Photography Workshops with a "painting with light" session.

For the image on the left (taken by Eliot Nierman), we worked in a totally dark room. I moved a small flashlight around our model's head, painting her with light. The exposure was 5 seconds at f/8, and the ISO was 200. The camera was on a tripod and the model needed to sit perfectly still. Yes! Eliot used his  cable release to avoid any camera shake.

Before our painting with light session, we had a portrait sessions using Westcott Spiderlites. For the image on the right (taken by Chirs Philipps), Vered Koshlano, our guest instructor for the day, set up a single light in a soft box and used a reflector to expertly light our subject, the beautiful Bella Paula. Vered also brought a few props, which added greatly to the shoot.

If you are coming on a future Hudson River Photography Workshop (see the Events page of my site for next year's events), why not subscribe to this blog? You'll get a preview of the photo opps - and the fun!

Explore the Light,
Rick

P.S. We are also planning SLR HD video shoots. Stay tuned.

Hudson River Photography Workshops Final Day: Studio Shoot

Today at the Hudson River Photography Workshops we had a cool guest instructor, Vered Koshlano, co-author of my Studio and On-Location Lighting Secrets book. In my den, we set up a single Westcott Spiderlite in a soft box and a Westcott reflector (to fill in some of the shadows created by the single light). The exercise: create beautiful studio lighting with a very simple set up.

One of the keys to this type of portrait: don't aim the light directly at the subject. Rather, angle it slightly in front of and away from the subject so that a nice soft and even light illuminates the subject.

Our model was Bella Paula. Vered brought some props, we added some photo know-how, and all the students made great images.

Good fun and learning for all.

Explore the light,
Rick

Hudson River Photography Workshop Day II: Processing Images

All the participants are getting nice images - learning about light, composition, exposure, lenses - and the mood and feeling of a picture. Great fun!

Khoa Minh took the top photo using his Canon 70-200mm lens set at 165mm and f/2.8 on his Canon 5D Mark II. Nice job focusing on the subject and blurring the background, Khoa. The leaf was a nice touch, too!

We've also been doing a lot of HDR photography. However, here's a non-HDR image by Eliot Nierman. This single image has a high dynamic range because Eliot carefully used the adjustments in Lightroom to bring out all the tonal values in the scene. I also like the composition here. I have taken dozen of students to this Buddhist temple and no one "saw" this image.

Nice work, Khoa and Eliot.

More images to come!

Explore the light,
Rick

Hudson River Photogrpahy Workshop Day I: Creative Seeing and Creative Photographing

Today was Day 1 of the Hudson River Photography Workshops. What fun!

One of the topics we discussed was creative seeing and creative photographing.

Here is just one example. Left photo: super boring. Middle photo: kinda boring. Right photo: now that's more like it!

We simply combined the elements in the left and middle photographs with a little creative composition for a "not your everyday" photograph.

Tips:
• Frame a background element with a foreground element.
• Use a wide-angle lens set at a small aperture and focus 1/3 into the scene to get max depth-of-field.
• Walk around a subject for a while before you shoot.
• Take a deep breath :-)

Explore the light,
Rick

Hudson River Photography Workshops Officially Opens

Week one of our Hudson River Photography Workshops officially opened tonight with a welcome dinner at Samurai Sushi and Hibachi Steakhouse.

To start the photo fun, we did some painting with light. We asked one of the friendly servers to be our model, posing right next to the hibachi table after we turned off all the lights in the room.

Here is Don Elmendorf's painting with light photograph. It's a five second exposure. The light source was a small pocket flashlight - aimed above and directly at the subject, so as not to illuminate the background.

Nice job Don!

Try painting with light. It's fun. You'll need a tripod and a flashlight. Start with your ISO set at 400, your aperture at f/8 and shutter speed at 5 seconds. That's only a starting point. Adjust your exposure accordingly. And... use your camera's self-timer or a cable release.

We also covered HDR, panos and flash photography. And the fun has just begun.

Explore the Light

Rick

P.S. I soften the server's skin in the picture using a technique I'll cover in a later post.