Workshop Series: Lighting

We like to share our photography knowledge with other people, so this series is meant to show off some of the work that our workshop participants have created.

Flash photography is overwhelming to a lot of people. Most of us are familiar with pop-up flashes that make everything washed out and/or produce the dreaded “red eye”. When faced with the choice between pictures that are so dark you can’t see anything or so washed out that you hate the way everything looks, is it any wonder that people are so frustrated? For this workshop, we focused on ways to use external flash units, both on-camera and off-camera, to enhance the look of our pictures.

Since we primarily use flash photography in darker settings, we stayed inside for this workshop. Participants bounced flash around the environment, mounted flashes on light stands, and one group even ventured outside so they could use direct flash to balance out the harsh sunlight. Back inside, we also took turns using an LED video light to create consistent illumination, which allowed us to see how similar or different that was from the bright pop of the flash.

This was probably our most educational and useful workshop yet, and our participants created a large variety of dramatic and beautiful images using each another as models.