Well, it is tech-sheet Friday, but that will have to be tech-sheet Saturday this week. The tech sheet I am working on is about using a meter, and there are a few more images that must be shot before it is ready to go.

So I have instead decided that it would be good to put our newest desktops up here at lighting-essentials.com so you can get a head start on decorating your desktops in preparation for Valentines day. Oh, and if you want to see the one I did for Smashing Magazine, it is here, about 5 or so down.

Now for some news before we unleash you into the page.

We have workshops in Montana and Chicago, and due to massive requests, we are now booking Omaha. I am really excited about this. Lots of traveling and working from hotel rooms, but it is also great to get to places that are off the beaten path and meet some great people.

The workshops have changed a lot since we started, and now they are right where it makes sense for them. I concentrate on lighting, but we also discuss the other realities of shooting subjects from portrait to fashion. Posing, handling a shoot, staying in control, shooting for post and more.

Now, on to the calendars for February. BTW, if you like them and are using them, let me know either in the comments or by email. And be sure to subscribe with RSS and let your friends know by clicking the save/share link at the bottom of the post.

First up is our calendar for the digital age… analog delivery of phone service, internet and power. Oh well, things change, huh. This photograph was taken in Hayden, Arizona.

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Remember to use your “Save As” to capture these or they will open in a Lightbox and be more difficult to download.

Next up is our ode to love. Marisa is a model in the Bay Area. This shot was taken with natural light to the front, with a gold reflector used to light the back wall behind her. This delicate light created a subtle gradient of light and sets her face off well.

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Remember to use your “Save As” to capture these or they will open in a Lightbox and be more difficult to download.

And for all you Briana fans, a simple, but lovely shot to warm your desktop for this cold, wintry month.

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Remember to use your “Save As” to capture these or they will open in a Lightbox and be more difficult to download.

Tomorrow will bring our Tech Sheet on using a light meter, and next week a couple of new videos that will be fun.

See you then.

Well, the last year of a strange and rocky decade draws to a close tonight. I know this past year has been an emotional roller-coaster for me as well as a very successful one with the workshops and the business.

I hope you will join me in saying ‘hasta la vista, baby” to 2008, but also in telling it to get the hell outta here. No more political crap for another couple of years and let’s get to the business at hand… building a great set of images.

Many of you have expressed a desire to go pro, or at least semi-pro and that means I need to focus a little on the business of photography, at least how it pertains to me, as well as the lighting. Thing is, there are wonderful blogs out there that do that sort of thing better.

Same with other areas like DIY and Photographer’s rights. I recognize that I need to get some of that into the site, but it will be through some amalgamation of the stuff already out there. Watch for a bi-weekly post on links to valuable information found on other sites.

We will also be focusing a little on getting some great photographers on with tutorials and interviews. That will take place more on the LE Magazine site, but honestly we are really working trying to figure out some avenues to drive some of this info down without it getting convoluted and – well – lost.

I have some good stuff coming this week, and the tech sheet will go up on Saturday morning instead of Friday for several reasons, but mostly because I want this post to be up for Friday morning as well.

Well, here are our three Desktops for January 2009. We will only be issuing 2 per month coming in February, and I will share the reason for that in February. Hey… it’s a good thing, you’ll see.

Our first is for the Briana fans out there. Shot with a small white umbrella in late evening light, I balanced the umbrella to only give me open shadows and a pop to the dress, not to overpower the ambient light. And hey, you Briana junkies may want to visit her site and get her dance calendar or a poster or, hey… both.

Get the images here and remember to use the Save Link As option to get them.
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Next up is the lovely Prescilla in Mexico. This shot was done with one speedlight to camera right and balanced with the ambient sunlight which was coming in from camera left behind Prescilla.

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The last one is a brightly colored wall shot in Tucson very early in the morning. I like old walls and doors and such. They are such great metaphors for things that are hard to express in other ways.

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Now we are all hearing how the next year is gonna suck. That sucks. No, not the year, that someone who knows nothing would tell you something to try to bring you down.

If someone had told you a year ago that the United States would elect an unknown Black Senator to the presidency, your house would be worth 30% less, and gas would be about a buck-fifty a gallon, would you have believed them? No, me either. Not because it is bad that it happened, only that no one expected it. Hillary was our next president, that was a done deal. House prices were climbing like crazy and gas was supposed to hover around $4 a gallon before it went up again… look it up… its all there in black and white from the ‘experts.’ Fools. Don’t let them take your hope and your dreams.

Screw ‘em. Live. Live well. Create and look forward. Are there bumps, sure, but we have had bumps before. This is a marvelous time to take advantage of the wimps and doom&gloomers. Kick ass. Don’t bother taking names unless you need to.

Have a great year and see you on the other side of today!

–don

Here they are… a day late, but here nonetheless… Lighting Essentials Free Desktops. This time I will explain a little about the lighting so you can get some brain exercise as well as some fun desktops for your monitor.

NOTE:
Our schedule for the first half of next year is up. Some are carved in stone and others are tentative. We need hosts for some of these cities and if you would like us to bring a Lighting Essentials workshop to your town, let me know as soon as possible. Some changes can still be made.

First… this is the last month of the year 2008. It has been a good year and a challenging year. Limits have been pushed and defined, time has been both an asset and a liability and the world seems to be a little goofy on a lot of fronts.

But we keep on. This Friday’s Tech Sheet is quite extensive and you will get a real kick out of it. Nothing like what you expect.. and that is also changing here at LE. We are going to diversify a bit with our subjects and styles.

Take a look at all the recent posts below and it will become pretty clear that we here at LE want this site to be the best of its kind. We feel that way about the workshops as well… the best. Period.

Three lighting setups with Video. In the studio with big strobes and speedlights.
Here is a two light beach shot where we treat the lights a little differently than the expected front/rim light.
Cleveland was our last workshop, and you can find our tentative schedule for first half of next year here.
How about this quick little tech sheet on using two lights or this post on clamshell light for dramatic headshots? If you missed any of them, here’s a chance to catch up.

Well… off to the free desktops for December 2008.

Our first is a still life.

Shooting notes: A large soft box is over the top of the three pears. It is slightly angled forward and there are flags to keep the background dark behind it. I added a small fill card to give the fruit some edge and no fill from below so the contrast would be deep. There is significant post production to provide a more illustrative look.

Make sure you use “Save Link As” – If you click on it, it will open in Lightbox.
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This shot, our next desktop, is of Briana in the sand in Florida. We wanted a sunny morning for the shot but got some overcast instead. So, no problem, just use the wonderful diffuse natural light on the sand and tweak in a little “sunlight” from a speedlight behind her and angled low. She was on her best model behavior… heh.

Make sure you use “Save Link As” – If you click on it, it will open in Lightbox.
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Finally we have Erica in a.. a… uh… well, we have Erica. What does this have to do with December? Heck, I don’t know… just looks good on the desktop. This shot was with a large umbrella up front and a large umbrella over her aimed at the background to keep it bright and clean.

Make sure you use “Save Link As” – If you click on it, it will open in Lightbox.
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Well, on with the festive month. Lots happening for you all… stay tuned.

A day or three late, but here nonetheless. All feature the lovely Briana who has a new calendar out on dancing called, appropriately enough, “Dancin’ ” You can see her site here.

Before heading over to get to them, take a look at some of the recent posts if you missed them:

“Should Photography be Easy” an essay on the creation of photographs.

“Why Did You Light it That Way?” is a deconstruction of the thought processes for a shot in Mexico.

“Deconstructing a Portrait on Location” looks at making a simple portrait with a little more snap.

Here are interviews with Joshua Targownik and Keith Taylor, two up and coming photographers from LA and Atlanta.

Here are our November Wallpapers.

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Coming up soon: Techsheet Assignments. We are excited about these. Coming Mid November.

We continue on with our free themes for your desktops. September is a strange month for me. I am getting tired of the heat here by then, and waiting for the cool nights to signal the end of the monsoon. However, we need the rain so I want the monsoon to continue for a while to bring that ever needed water.

I got to travel a lot recently and was in Seattle, Bermuda and San Francisco with little time in between. Because of that we are perpetually behind here. I have design and photography clients waiting for my time, and I want to keep the site up with two updates a week. There always seems to be something else for me to do, so there is no real free time these days.

So with the spirit of hurriedness and the desire for tranquility, I chose two images from Bermuda and a shot of Briana in the California desert to use for the desktops. I hope you enjoy these as much as I enjoy making them.

Here is the first desktop. It is one I did of Trikita on a wall in Bermuda, down along St. Georges. I love her spirited pose and the incredible sky all around.

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The second desktop is a shot I did at dawn on the beach. Getting up early with one of the workshop attendees, we tramped down to the beach in the dark and found our spots. We weren’t sure at all if it was going to be a good sunrise, but it turned out OK. I was shooting toward the sun when I turned and saw this view behind me.

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And by popular request, our monthly Briana desktop calendar added today (the 2nd) for her fans. We will have a Briana desktop for Model Behavior each month. Her dance calendar is coming along well too, so look for it soon.

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Thanks for visiting Lighting Essentials. BTW, we ask for registration to keep some sort of order here. I try to keep out the spam and such. We do not use your registration information for anything, and I don’t even look at it. But if we have someone come on and start selling or spamming, I would at least have control. So don’t worry about signing up or registering. You wont receive any email from me and I share that list with NO ONE.

Thanks…

Well in the tradition of the last 3 months… can we call that a tradition? Anyway, in the tradition of the last three months we present our August desktops. One features a morning scene we all can identify with and the other has nine tiny Briana’s dancing their way across the screen. That’s kinda fun, eh?

The lighting tutorial on small strobes starts Monday. I hope we have a good participation. I have broken it down into easy chunks of knowledge, so everyone can get familiar with their small strobes and how to use them to light more effectively.

Let’s go take a look at this months desktop designs, shall we. Again, these are free so download them and share with your friends.

Our first set of desktop calendars is a still life that many of us recognize… and empty coffee cup. Yeah, it may be one of those days, but at least you’ll know what day it is.

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Our next desktop features LE’s favorite model dancing across the screen in her famous little black dress. That makes August and even hotter month, ya know.

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Remember to join us for the four part post on small strobe use starting Monday, August 4, 2008. Each Monday for the month of August we will have a new post on the subject.

Here are two new desktop calendars for you. A sporting model out to set the land speed record, and Briana in the tropics on a mysteriously dark evening.

Either one you choose, your July calendars are more fun with Lighting Essentials. More content to follow quickly, we are loaded with new stuff.

Ready for a quick escape, our model seems to enjoy defying gravity.

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Briana seems posed for mystery on a warm beach in Florida.

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We have some great new designs for August… hey, it’s my birthday so I gotta do something special for you guys.