I have had some great workshops over the past few weeks. This weekend it is Mexico, then some recharge time. Shooting a lot of workshop images and images for the book in Mexico as we are working on the workshop itself. I have Megan, Jerry and Evan going down for some extra shooters to cover the workshop and finalize the workbook.

Kansas City was awesome, as was Dallas. We are still collecting from those workshops. The Nashville workshop got some great images out to me right away so they are being posted now.

I am very proud of this workshop. It combines visual learning, lecture/demonstrations and hands-on, real world shooting. We are booking as we go on through the summer, so make sure you check back and see where we are going to be for the next few months.

If you are new to the site, you should check out the archive pages for lots and lots of posts on light and photographic lighting. Just hit the “Tag List” on the right side for a great introduction to the works here.

Look what is coming up:
May
Cleveland 30, 31

June
Omaha, Nebraska 6, 7
Missoula, Montana 20, 21
Chicago, Illinois 27, 28

July
El Paso , Texas, 10, 11
Memphis , Tennessee, 18, 19

Let’s look at a few images and deconstruct the lighting, shall we.

First Image is the group shot from the cover:

Photo by Todd Hibbs.

This was the last shot of the day on Sunday. We had dealt with rain and wind and cold. But everyone was in great spirits so we took the four models for one more shot in the ‘ruins.’ We decided they looked like a rock band so that was kind of the theme.

An ambient light reading was made and shots were done at that setting to find out what the ambient looked like without any additional work. It was dull and lifeless, so we tried a few underexposed shots to get a feeling of that look ad settled on a 1.5 stop underexposure for the shot to have interesting color and sky.

I ‘sketch’ with the camera. Take a few shots at different exposures to see where the light falls at different exposures. Check out the DOF and the resulting color/contrast of the overall image.

We then positioned the models in a line that would allow us to light them with different speedlights. You can see the staggered line that lets us aim the lights and not cause any shadows to affect the models. We focused one of the strobes to give us a more tightly focused light on the third model from the left. We then added strobes all around the group aimed to not create any shadows. All are positioned with ‘carbon-based light stands’ and they were charged with keeping the lights focused on a straight axis of their noses. This keeps the faces from having shadows on them that would possibly detract from the overall look.

The photographers positioned themselves at a low angle to add interest to the background. Keeping the bricks and the little patch of sky gives the shot a reference point and keeps the lit models more dramatic.

Here’s a little lighting diagram to help you see how the lights played on the subjects.

Up next is a group shot by Martin Howard… same image, a different take.

Martin decided on a more contrasty post, and a closer shot of the group. You can see how the same shot can look so totally different when cropped a little tighter. The darker image shows how beautifully the light plays on the highlights of the subjects jeans and faces.

Stormy Sky and Two Speedlights for a Dramatic portrait

Photo by Todd Hibbs.

This shot was created to show off the incredibly stormy sky. Todd set his strobes to deliver the lit part at two stops brighter than the ambient and background. He knew that the sky would be very dramatically presented if it was dark and moody. We all loved the telephone pole and the lines as well – they gave it a gritty, urban look.

Shooting with strobes overpowering the ambient can sometimes be problematic in where the shadows fall. We used two speedlights here and they were very carefully aimed to not throw discernible shadows where they could be seen and possibly make the shot look “flash lit”.

You can see that we kept the strobe to camera left high and aimed at the model on the left. This threw here shadow against the other model. She in turn was lit by a strobe to camera right and slightly off axis. This provided a smooth light on both women and the shadow from the camera right strobe got thrown beyond on the wall we cannot see.

There is a interesting psychological effect when we overpower the sun, and create a shot without it making sense to our intrinsic ideas of what light does. Dramatic lighting like this can be a wonderful way to mix it up a bit… but make sure the end image looks just as you want it to.

I think ‘comping’ or ‘sketching’ with the camera can really open your eyes to how the image is going to look. When Todd shot this initially without strobe we saw immediately that there would be a problem on the wall if a shadow was introduced too high in the image.

One more by Todd… Rees jumps in the middle of the street – and we make a pretty dramatic shot.

Wanting to do an editorial looking shot, we chose the middle of the street for a totally urban and mundane set and the dramatic sky for a background. Placing two speedlights on the same side of her – one on a boom and one hand held (both carbon-based units), we were able to show her leaping against the sun. Todd underexposed the sky with the shutter speed and used the speedlights to provide the correct exposure for Rees.

When shooting dancers it is important to remember to light where they will be and not where they are. Three steps into the leap and then 18″ or so above the spot where her head would be if she were simply standing. The guys with the lights worked very hard to keep the lights on her and she was amazingly precise leaping in the same spot so Todd could stay in the shadow of her head during the leap.

A quick, and clearly precise trigger-finger is necessary. Dancers move really quickly. And DSLR’s have a slight, but noticeable shutter lag. You have to be ready for it when they leap. And – anticipate. It takes a while to get it right, but concentration makes it far less likely that the dancer will have to do it over and over to get it right for you. I don’t use a motor drive on these things… I cannot trust the motor to catch that precise moment.

I thank you for dropping by. Keep Lighting Essentials in your bookmarks and let others know about it.

Thanks for

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Here we are for our second Tech Sheet of the year. How to create a natural light look to a photograph when there is little to no ambient light to be had. We will be using a couple of speedlights for this Tech Sheet.

It has been a wild first couple of weeks for me, and I don’t mind telling you all that it has been exciting. Clients who had ‘gone dark’ came out with plans for work for this quarter, LE is doing well and the workshops are getting more attention.

I have been furiously working on materials for the workshop, and developing some other interesting things for LE… and on top of that, I have assignments and editing to do.

Hey, I ain’t complaining.

I hope you have checked out the workshop page for our itinerary for the first couple of months. And we are adding some more in the coming days. As always, we are looking for hosts in the areas where we have scheduled workshops as well as entertaining ideas you all may have about the workshop coming to your little part of the world. We need 10-12 attendees and we are ready to roll.

NOTE: I was asked about some Photoshop techniques and have added that to the bottom of this post.

Be sure to check out all the tech sheets we have done by clicking on the Tech Sheet Category above. Now, on to creating a natural ambient looking light when there is none. (And, look… the downloadable Tech Sheet has a third page bonus feature… that’ pretty cool, eh?)

FOR THIS PHOTOGRAPH:
- two speedlights ( am using a 550 and 430 Canon)
- 1 medium or large umbrella (biggest you have)
- two stands
- tripod recommended

We will examine an ambient light look in this tech sheet. There are times when we have some wonderful ambient to work with and then there are times when we have to all the light ourselves. These three shots represent ways of working to provide a natural look to an image without having any naturally occurring light to work with.

I am using a 60” umbrella with a 550 Canon Flash and a bare 430 Canon flash for the light in the first picture. And I wanted the image to look natural, relaxed and not look like it was strobed or overly lit. It is barely out of frame to camera left.

We have a bonus third page for the downloadable tech sheet

Without the flash, there were some large spots in the ceiling and I looked at how they lit the room. I had some ambient so I wanted to make sure that I provided a look that would be somewhat consistent with the look of the room.

You can see the subtleties of the light on her legs and shoulders.

Creating ‘Ambient’ Light
In the first shot we are going to create the ambient light with a second speedlight. I have mine on a stand and it is pointed up at the ceiling at an angle toward camera right. Look at the shadows from the drawer pulls behind Bri. You can see the angle of the shadows. That tells you where the light was coming from. I also wanted it to be at an angle so the image would look a little more natural. Coming straight down could have looked a little contrived. The slight angle is more convincing.

I took a meter reading of that light and dialed it to give me f4.5. That is 1 and 1/3 stop over the main light which was going to be f-2.8.

I moved Bri into position and made a few shots to get the angle of the light just right. Notice that there is no spill of the ambient strobe onto the shadow side of her face.

Two reasons:
1. I wanted her to be separated from the back
2. The feeling of light coming from the front.

Here is a diagram of the light and how I pre-visualized it.

Briana in the kitchen... you can see how the light is working.

Below you see the room with only the back light firing. You can see the spotlights in the ceiling and also how dark it is to Briana’s front. The addition of the umbrella and its soft light makes the shot look more natural. And having the background be brighter also gives the shot a sense of light in two distinct areas… the way it would be naturally.

Notice how the light is bright on the areas I needed for the shot.

Above:
The effect of the large umbrella is very easily seen in these two images. The power of the light in the umbrella isn’t very high. I wanted the spotlights to stay a part of the image, even though they may not be offering too much. The light on the camera left of her head shows how a little punch from the spotlight in the dining room can help add some ‘texture’ to the shot.

A small contact sheet section of this shoot:

FOR THIS PHOTOGRAPH:
- one speedlight
- one stand
- tripod recommended

The shot of Bri near the shower is a great example of how to create a natural light look with some strobes, in this case only one strobe.

This is a large, walk-in shower in the condo we use when doing the Mexico workshops. The shot was taken late at night so there is no sunlight coming through the large block glass window to camera right. I had to create a feeling of that beautiful sunlight with my strobes.

Briana and the shower:

I took a speedlight and put it inside the shower with a medium shoot through umbrella and made some shots. They looked alright… but didn’t have the look of the light flooding in that window. So I took the bare strobe and placed it right inside the shower and blasted the walls with it. That huge lightsource nearly replicated the light that would be normally filling that shower on a beautiful Mexico morning.

I had Bri lean forward so there would be light flowing on the wall behind her head and then blocked by her body leaning against the moulding. The tungsten lights in the bath area added some warm fill and the shot ended up looking quite natural. I had seen this shot in my head from the first morning, so it was cool to make it happen… and it looked exactly like I had it my head.

FOR THIS PHOTOGRAPH:
- one speedlight
- one stand
- tripod recommended

Bri on the phone is a great example of finding a shot on the spur of the moment. She was doing her hair in the mirror there and the makeup lights all around the mirror were creating a wonderful light.

She turned her back to the mirror and all the light on her face went away. But I wanted to recreate that cool look of the mirror lights and the natural ambiance of the dressing room.

Directly in front of Briana, to camera left, is a walkin closet. It is painted white. Perfect. I took a speedlight and placed it in the closet. Aiming it at the back wall provided a very large, soft light source coming out the double doors of the closet.

I metered the lights at ISO 800, and found a shutter speed that placed them at f-4. I made sure the light coming out of the closet was f 2.8 and shot at that exposure. This made the makeup lights brighter. And that gave the shot a sense of reality. If the light in front had been brighter, then it would not have made sense and it would have looked ‘lit’… which is what I wasn’t looking for.

EDIT:
I was asked about some Photoshop work on the images. I will explain below.

First off, I use Tony Kuyper’s excellent Luminosity Masks religiously. Love them. Get them, tip him well. There is a hell of a lot of work in them… and they will make your work stand out.

Here is the image on left as it came out of the camera RAW – no manipulation.

First, you can see my markup… simple, just a reminder of the thoughts I have as editing.

Here is what I did.

1. Checked the levels pallet and moved a little darker.
2. Retouched any skin anomalies.
3. Smoothed skin by making a new layer, blending it with Softlight, backing opacity off to 30% and adding Gaussian Blur at 10
4. Added a layer of 50% gray and used soft brush at 10% to gently paint in shadow and highlights: black for shadow and white for highlights.
5. Copied that layer to a new layer and changed blend mode to Overlay. Adjusted opacity to what I liked.
6. Applied TK’s “Light” mask and adjusted a slight ‘S’ Curve effectively raising the contrast in the lighter areas without modifying the shadows.
7. Applied TK’s “Dark” mask and adjusted a tighter ‘S’ creating contrast in the shadows. This helped bring the texture out of the wall and stone.
8. Applied TK’s “Narrow MidTone” mask and raised the midtones across middle and light nodes. This made the image more ‘airy’ in the middle tones.
9. Applied sharpening to blue channel and overall at 200 / .3 / 4

And closed the image. This hardly took more than a few minutes, but the result is what I was looking for… a contrast that looks real, with tones and color that are rich as well

Join us after the weekend for a special post on Light Meters.

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Today’s tech sheet looks at using two speedlights for a dramatic headshot. We aren’t doing anything really special, although I did modify a Gary Fong diffuser to give me a round light instead of the oblong/square light that a normal speedlight gives off.

I wanted to add some flare to headshots I had planned with Briana, and I wanted to try to get them inside. We had gone outside to get some flare and it worked pretty well. (In an upcoming post there will be more on that shoot.) But doing it in the studio with studio strobes would be tricky. I decided on the speedlights for a couple of reasons. One, I wanted to shoot at a wide aperture and two, I wanted to do something a little different than pulling out the big guns.

Before we start out, a reminder on upcoming workshops, some cool previous posts, and of course a link to our tech sheet area which is growing pretty well. Go ahead and print them out. They will really make a nice set of tutorials for your bag.

On to this weeks Tech Sheet:

Working with Speedlights has advantages and disadvantages. Lets look at some of the advantages that using the two speedlights gave this shoot:

They are able to give just a wink of light to allow me to shoot at the minimum aperture I wanted, they are fast to set up, and at low power they recycle immediately. The disadvantages are the squared off light pattern they produce and the harshness of the bare light. (NOTE: You can download your Tech Sheet in PDF form here.)

We addressed both of these in this shoot.

I modified the Gary Fong diffuser by attaching a round reflector from an old Sunpack strobe that has long since bit the dust. That reflector rounds off the light pretty well and also gives it some parabolic tendencies although it really isn’t a parabolic reflector. A true parabolic has the bulb in the space of the reflector where this one does not.

The harshness is something that I and the model work with from a position choice. Keeping the face into the axis of the light mitigates the shadows on the nose and lips. If the model turns away from the light, there are more shadows, and if she keeps her face toward the light there are less shadows. I work with great models who know and understand what I want, so telling Bri to keep into the speedlight was all it took. She wrote a great little article on models working with the light here.

Here is one of the shots we did. You can see the flare from the back coming through her hair. I was really happy when I saw how it was working as that was exactly the look I wanted.

Working with speedlights have their own challenges: For one thing, there is no modeling light.

Not having modeling lights is a little tricky, and focusing my 100mm Canon was challenging at first… man that thing was hunting focus like crazy. I finally added a little lamp light to help it along. The model is essentially working in the dark and the image doesn’t look all that cool when the strobes aren’t firing. But, a quick check and you know you have it.

Having the round light also gave me a nice shape to the light as it fell off. Remember that the light is in a pretty close position to the model, so it is not spreading the light for her full length, but falling off around midsection.

This shot shows the falloff pretty well. Notice the soft edge to it.

The soft edge to the falloff is due to the parabolic effect of the speedlight modified with a round reflector.

One of the important things is working the model toward the light. Keeping that axis of her face and the light close will keep the harsh shadows on the nose and lips to a minimum. Here are some contact sheets so you can watch as Briana works her face toward the light, but keeps plenty of other dynamics in play so it doesn’t end up looking static.

Using her body and shoulders to advantage, Briana works her face toward the light for a more pleasing result.

This contact sheet shows what happens when the flare gets too strong.

As I move around the set, the angle would change with the back light and the camera. Occasionally, as you notice above, the flare would be too much from the exposed flash. I will always try to push it to the limit, so there are times when it completely obliterates the image.

I shoot tethered for most of my studio work and just recently got a MacBook for going on location – it’s smaller and easier to pack. I cannot stress how much shooting tethered can make your shooting go easier. Once you try it, going back to mere ‘chimping’ seems so, well, ancient.

One of my favorite shots from this session so far (I still am looking and processing, a task that I spread over a few months usually) is this one. Just enough flare to make it work and a great angle/gesture from Briana.

One of my favorites

I hope you all like the tech sheets and keep them to help give you ideas for shooting on your own.

Remember to get your tech sheet (PDF) here and start your collection. There will be at least 26 next year so start now or play catch up then.

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On location with speedlights, a model and a videographer. A warm, well, mostly warm December day and we are shooting in Tempe, Arizona. I will share the setups with you and also what I was thinking and working with here. Briana is the model, check out her Model Behavior column here. NOTE: this is part three of the speedlight series. Part one, Part two.

I will be using only speedlights and I am using them in many different ways: direct, feathered, bounced into umbrellas and shot through umbrellas. I love all kinds of light, and keeping it fast moving with the speedlights is also important to me. We wanted to get several shots on this day, and the light was moving pretty quickly.

Some of the images we are discussing in this post. Video at bottom of second page.

Our first image is not one with strobes. OK, sue me. I included it because it was the first shot we did… all natural light and we got to stay in the sun for a few minutes to stay warm. I have the sun over my shoulder and Bri is simply working into it.

Our next image set is one that I saw when we walked up to the Tempe Municipal Building, Bri had this great little black dress and the point of the building was such a graphical statement that I wanted to feature it in the shot as well. I am using two speedlights for this one. One behind and one in front to counter the sun’s backlight look, even though there was only a little direct back light. I knew I would need a very low angle and wide lens, so I went to the edge of the platform and lay down on a service grate that was at an angle to the platform. That gave me the exact perspective I needed for the shot.

I then brought Briana into the spot where the point of the building was above her and set my lights. The speedlight behind her, to camera right, was set to be the same as the one in front so the effect would ‘rim light’ her and help her stand out from the background. There was considerable ambient light, so I had to make sure it didn’t become a problem as well. In this shot, we are totally working in slightly overcast sun. The main light is kept at a point to have it offset the sunlight, camera right, and Bri is very conscious of where the light is and to keep herself in that axis point so the image looks great. She keeps her face pointed toward that light so there are few shadows caused by nose/hair across her face. Tell your models where the main light is and they will stay aware of it.

Contact Sheet:

A second shot from that series. You can see with the bright sky, the feeling of sunlit back light is pretty strong, the overcast was lifting a bit here. The shadows thrown by the lights are kind of fun. There is one speedlight to camera right, behind her aiming toward her, and one speedlight in front, opposite the sun angle, but more on camera axis than direct opposite.

I see the finished image in my head before I start to set up the lights. I think it is so important to try to visualize exactly what you want the shot to be before commencing on the work. At least starting with something in mind can give you a direction. Directions can change as new ideas come to life… be sure not to ‘marry’ yourself to a losing image. It will be more of a pain than a joy. Learn to follow the flow of the shoot to find the images that seem to beg to be taken. Then do them.

Our next shot is a headshot idea I had when I saw the sun breaking through and washing part of the platform in light. I moved Bri to a corner where the light was backlighting her and brought in a speedlight in an umbrella very close… camera left. To camera right, at quite a distance, I have a second, bare flash turned way down low. This was added to give a little ‘pop’ to the hair on the shadow side. I love what it did to the overall shot… the little shadows and things that made the image more interesting and her gaze more intense.

Contact Sheet:

You can see that I have a nice, subtle hair light going from the sun. I matched the sunlight with the strobe (take a reading of the sun and make the strobe in the umbrella match that reading.) I like either subtle or blown out… LOL… it’s just me. The umbrella’s close proximity to Briana made the light soft, and the additional light to the side added some pop. In the image below, taken while I was setting the lights, you can see that the light was too hot for this one and caused a shadow on her nose. Later, when I was editing, I kind of liked the look. This is how I test light… in close on the face.

We moved to a long, elegant gown next and placed Bri near the same point as the second shot above, but not with the point of the building so prominent. I have only one light on this shot. It is right next to me, camera left. Sun is doing heavy lifting on backlight. I really liked the long, slinky look to the pose in this shot, and the way the sidewalk lights up and sweeps under her toward me. Be careful to keep the light, and your model, in the correct axis for the light to do its job. Moving a few feet either direction could have spelled disaster for this image. I have the sun right behind her and I am working in the shadow she is casting forward. Wide angle lens on the Canon, of course.

When you can place the sun right behind the subject, you get this great shadow thing with the legs and the light coming underneath. I try to lie down and get the shot from within the shadow the model is throwing forward. Then the sun doesn’t blow out and there is no flare. Your subject becomes your flare stopper as well.

Contact Sheet:

Changing into a white top had me thinking headshots again. I love headshots… really really do. In this case I tried a small, shoot through umbrella in pretty tight for a main. We were in the shade, with just a little dappled light coming in over Bri’s right shoulder. Moving the light in close gave me some wonderful, soft light. I added a large bounce card to camera right, in as close as I could get it. This grabbed as much of the light as we could get and had it bright enough for the shadow side of her face to have something to reflect.

In the background is a couple of buildings and a few backlit, autumn leaves looking trees. The color was perfect for a background and since we were working in the shade, I could use a much smaller f-stop for less DOF than I would have been able to do with full sun. Keeping that lens as wide open as possible really dropped the background out. I simply dialed the power down on the speedlight to about 1/8 into the umbrella and brought it in close.

You can see how the subtle side light of a bright sky still works to separate her from the background and is opposite the soft umbrella light to camera left. The little pools of sunlight work to give some hair light and add some intensity to the backlight. The fill card which is out of frame on camera right, helped keep the shadows open as well.

Contact Sheet:

Here is another image, this one a little tighter:

Here is a shot of the lighting setup that we used for the bounce umbrella.

In this image I switched the light to a bounce umbrella. There is a bit more sunlight finding its way through the leaves here. It adds a nice, natural effect. You can also see how the umbrella in a bounce position “wraps” more light around the face than the shoot through did. These images were taken with a telephoto lens to help keep the subject in the fore and the background out of focus and more of a pallet of color and shape for the subject to reside on.

For those who wonder what the difference is between shoot through and bounce umbrellas, here is a side-by-side comparison of the two lighting types. You can see how the bounce gives more wrap, and the shoot through has more contrast with a soft feel.

Our last shot of the day was with Bri in a pile of leaves. It was getting pretty chilly, but she was up to the task. I used a single umbrella with a flash in bounce position above her and angled down. It was dialed way back to only fill the shadows in. Most of the light in this shot is the ambient, it is dominant. The flash was used to keep the shadows open as well as to pop the colors. I wanted to do something with a different angle to it and placing her on the ground seemed like a very interesting take on the scene.

The light is near her left hip and is on a stand. I worked around her and the light was good in most locations. I ended up liking the image where she is upside down, with the light being a bit of ‘back’ to her as my favorites.

Contact Sheet:

I worked the shot from all around, but these shots where she is looking up are more out of the box so to speak than the others we did that afternoon.

Well, there you go. A shoot, mostly with speedlights used for main, fill, effect and fun. You can use your speedlights to add drama or to simply fill in a little shadow area. A soft main light for a headshot or a powerful ‘beat the sun’ look for high contrast. It remains up to you to find the ways to use your lights to make the shots you see in your head.

Visit us for the final installment Sunday, August 31 when we take a look at specific modifiers and how they can be used.

Here is a video of the shoot. You can see the lighting and also a glimpse into how an amazing model makes your life as a photographer so much easier.

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Two weekends in a row I have had workshops… three counting next weekend in San Francisco. Wow… that’s some serious travel… Seattle, Bermuda, San Francisco. Sheesh, extreme distances…

Seattle was a blast, even though we had a small group. Lots of models and I am sure you have all seen the images on Flickr (lighting-essentials forum). Wow… lots of good shots.

Bermuda. What do I say about Bermuda? It is small… 26 square miles of island way the heck out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean east of North Carolina. It is a tropical Island with colorful homes, businesses and some of the most wonderful people you will ever meet.

They drive too fast (posted speed limit is 35 and ain’t nobody doin’ less than 55) on scooters and bikes. They have the most amazing affinity for having fun and they paint their homes pink, yellow, blue and chartreuse. Seriously beautiful scenery even in the towns.

We visited St. Georges and I fell in love with that place. Old and quaint with colorful walls, doors, buildings and lots and lots of textures, it is simply a photographers paradise. We are going back to shoot there on Monday after the workshop.

Speaking of the workshop… we started the day at around 9 at Clearwater Beach. Guess why they call it Clearwater? Yep… you can see the bottom even way out in the water. After the warmup and the lighting tools talk we started putting some of what we had learned to use.

We had 4 models, great models, from Hamilton and they really brought all the enthusiasm to the workshop we could expect. Dynamos.

I captured this image of ‘Kita when she was working with her first team shoot. I don’t shoot very much during the workshops as it is mostly about the workshop attendees, not me. But occasionally I do catch a shot or two.

Here is one I grabbed of Oterro, our male model for the day.

And here is Oterro jumping in the sea. I gotta tell you, this guy is really a solid talent.

Here is a shot of one of the roads we took this morning. Cool.

Here are some shots I did of the workshop folks having fun and shooting their asses off at Clearwater Beach Nature Preserve.

Sunday went super well. That is to say, we did have a few model glitches. Seems that a fashion show came to town and used up some of the models that Ivan had for us, but it ended up that the few we had were so terrific as to be totally amazing.

We started at Fort Hamilton which is in the city of Hamilton… the main city in the Island. It overlooks the entire Bermuda area. Headshots were done in the old cannon turrets and the models were loving all the textures that they had to play with. We then set up some headshots in the location – blending the existing ambientm, sunlight and strobe for a very nice feel. This included a study in how the flash sync isn’t an absolute… it’s a choice.

Lunch was an incredible dish served in Bermuda. The tender herbs and spices blended together for a rich, rewarding chicken experience. Yep… they got KFC in Bermuda. Bermudians love KFC. LOL.

After lunch found us in a tunnel with ringflash, a grassy area where Otero was leaping with his sacrificial ceremonial really awesome for real sword. This guy jumped all day long. What a tremendous athlete. We ended the day with a blow out lighting excercise on the steps of the old fort. One ABR800 for a main light and 4 speedlights all around for kickers… this shot really rocked and I am so hoping that someone will post a few of these soon.

Thanks to all the Bermudians for their hospitality, warmth, enthusiasm and great fun. I will be coming back to see my new friends again. Hopefully soon.

Tomorrow is a personal day. Allison, Ivan and I are heading around Bermuda by boat to find some stuff to shoot. I didn’t shoot much at all during the workshops, but tomorrow… watch out… gonna fill more than a couple of cards.

Here are a few shots from today…

This was the last shot it turned out. We had Kita and Otero as Mayan lovers on the steps. Shot with a ringlight as main, and four speedlights all around the subjects to add interesting light and speculars, the shot was a favorite of everyone.

A few from the town today…

It’s Monday now.
Got up before dawn for a trip to the Island tip to try to catch sunrise.
Photos later today…
Look to the end of the Alison shots.

Alison and I just got in from shooting the sunset and she is running off for work. She left a few of the images she did over the workshop and I will share them with you here. I need to point out that these are simply processed images right out of Lightroom and have not been Pshopped in any way. Alison is a recent High School Grad in Bermudavand is heading off to Kent, UK, to study the law. Alison Begman’s images:

Single speedlight held by humanbooms and high over camera left.

Softbox with fill in sunlit Fort Hamilton, Bermuda.

Umbrella and portable studio strobe, Bermuda.

Speedlight and reflector and sun. Otero was quite a sport to do all we asked him to.

Single Speedlight and careful metering of the ambient.

Single speedlight, reflector and human boom.

Umbrella main light with no fill inside a dark gun turret wall. Additional speedlight for backlight.

Otero brought his ceremonial sword and Alison had him jumping till she hot her shot.

Otero with shirt flying. We helped a bit, but the shot is dynamic and fresh.

Michael Jones just sent one of his shots from the last setup of the day. Bright, bright sunny afternoon, so we made our own reality on some mythic looking stairs. There are a lot of lights in this shot. It took a while to set up. The models are hot and tired at this point, and yet… look at the emotion they brought to Michael’s shot.

Here are a few sunrise pics I got this morning. Loved the clouds.

And the seaweed made beautiful little patterns on the sand.

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