Whew… what a weekend! I was pretty tired on Sunday, but also full of excitement after spending such a wonderful time with all our workshop attendees, models and fellow photographers. It’s hard to beat talking photography with people who are passionate about shooting and then shooting beautiful people along side them … all in one weekend experience.
My fellow teachers Jen Kroll and Holly Henderson have posted a real good overview of the weekend, so I won’t go into the time-line of things here (check their blogs for that), but I will share some of my highlights and favorite shots from Saturday’s photo shoots.
I want to start out by saying how awesome this group of people were. Everyone was so friendly, talented and eager to learn that it made the weekend such a blast in every way. It was fun to see all the networking and learning that took place between all the photographers and not just from Jen, Holly or I.
Saturday was probably my favorite day in the weekend, mostly because we got to shoot together. I learned so much from just shooting with everyone and even though I was one of the instructors, I found myself learning so many new approaches to lighting and shooting from Holly and Jen.
One of the sessions I taught early on Saturday was some studio lighting techniques in the Penthouse Suite at the Radisson, in Kalamazoo. Here’s a fun shot showing the 2 story suite. Note the light up top and Ryan Prins head poking over the balcony. : )
As you can see, there was already a lot of light in the room, so adding light wasn’t really necessary, but we were creative and tried some fun new approaches to using strobes. Here is a shot using that light that was above in the balcony shooting down:
We also had a strobe light about 20 to 30 feet away off to the side (about where the picture was taken in the wide location shot at the top of this post). It was fun because I had each light programed on a different number on my pocket wizard and was able to switch which light I wanted to fire simply by toggling a switch on the pocket wizard. The side light however proved to be one of my favorite light sources. I was particularly happy with the blend of natural light mixed with the strobe I brought.
This next shot was one of my favorites! I love the black and white divided background! The black was the chair she was sitting on, and the white was the window. This was a natural light shot (no strobes used).
Thid next shot was from using Jen’s idea to put the model close to the strobe light, but just use the modeling light and not fire the strobe part of the light. It was an experiment with warm and cold color balance (warm from the modeling light on the strobe, and cold from the natural outside light)
And this shot was taken in the same location, but color balanced differently (balanced to the cold light outside) and without the window in the background.
Later after lunch we had a new group of models to work with and here are some of my favorite shots of the afternoon using all natural light.
I’m sad that the weekend is over, but so excited to have meet such a wonderful new group of people and make some new friendships in the process. Thank you everyone for making this such a great experience! Even my video crew jumped in and helped out! Thanks Ryan Prins, Jay I. for all you did!
3 quick plugs to close out this blog post:
- If you didn’t make it to this seminar but wished you had… get the video! Yes that’s right we taped the whole weekend and will be selling the DVD later this summer. It will be packed with all our teaching sessions, and lots of tips from the live shoots. I don’t know how long it will be just yet, but I’m guessing it will be at least 2 DVD’s and run at least 5 to 8 hours! If you are interested in the DVD and want to be notified when its available send an e-mail to: workshops@j-jstudios.com – we are hoping for a late summer completion time.
- I will be offering Photoshop training at various levels from beginner to advanced for anyone who is interested in growing their Photoshop wizardry. Again, if you are interested just send an e-mail to: workshops@j-jstudios.com – These training sessions will take place very soon so act fast if you are interested.
- We don’t know when our next workshop will be, but we hope to set a date soon. Most likely it will be sometime in the fall. Stay tuned!
