It looks like David Hobby over at Strobist is going to run a new version of last year’s summer long lighting workshop. I learned a ton of stuff from the bootcamp last year, and after the OneLight Workshop, I am highly motivated to do a bunch more lighting stuff. If you are interested in improving the quality of your pictures via off camera lighting, you owe it to yourself to participate in Lighting 102.
Yesterday I took a day off from work and attended Zack Arias‘ One Light Workshop. The One Light covers how to use a single off camera light to enhance your photographs. I found out about it when some pictures from the One Light Workshop Alumni Pool showed up in the Strobist Flickr Pool. Since I had participated in David Hobby’s Strobist Boot Camp last year, I had some idea about many of the concepts that Zack taught during the One Light, but it was very valuable to me to see how someone like Zack put those techniques to work, and to be able ask questions and clarify my understanding. One big revelation was how Flash to Subject distance and the Inverse Square Law affect lighting. There are still a few pieces of that which are fuzzy, and I’m going to have to do some more reading to feel comfortable with the theory, but Zack gave some really compelling and practical applications of the theory to real world shooting situations.
One of the best parts of the workshop is that Zack gets a model and we all went on a photoshoot, and watched Zack put the theory into practice. Then we all got to try our hand at it, and get help from Zack while everything was still going on. I’m usually a learn it from a book (or blog) kind of guy, but I definitely found the hands on aspects of the workshop to be the most helpful. We did a number of things that really helped me *see* how light was behaving.
The other great benefit of the One Light was the chance to meet other photographers in the Seattle area. I got to meet Erin Vey, who has been doing wonderful work on Flickr for quite some time. The Rodriguez brothers, Gabriel and Boone worked hard to put the One Light together and were great hosts in addition to being good photographers. We had a good sized contingent of people from Vancouver B.C., and it sounded like they were going to get their own One Light sometime soon. It was interesting for me to hear the professional photographers talking about their business and to get a glimpse into life in the photography world. Zack had a lot of good information about how he’s built up his photography business
Here are a few of the images that I made during the workshop:
I need to do more with black and white, so here’s a try at that.
I’m particularly happy with this shot. The One Light was held at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, and this was taken in their main auditorium, which has a big sound booth right smack in the middle. There’s a SunPak 120j with a 10 degree grid lighting up Theresa’s face, and the ambient light (sound board, and stage in the far background) is getting picked up by a slow shutter. We did this one during our “go shoot something time”, and I came up with the concept for this, so it felt good to go from concept to actual image.
If you have the opportunity to go to a One Light, I would highly recommend it. Zack has the same low budget approach that David Hobby is taking over at Strobist, and Zack is travelling a lot more than David is (David, if you do a workshop in the Pacific Northwest, I am there). Also the One Light is pretty inexpensive compared to most photo workshops and if you have a day job, it happens all in one day (there’s a mixer the night before).
Update: More Images
This afternoon my Flickr stream hit 100,000 views. In honor of that occasion, here’s the photo that was at the end of the stream:
It’s the Strobist blog’s first birthday! Congratulations to the awesome David Hobby, and my thanks for completely changing my understanding of flash photography and lighting.
I guess you can outsource just about everything. My buddy Kris Krug posted a request for comments on a retouched version of one of his pictures. The interesting thing is that the retouching was done by a gentleman in India who tracked Kris down using Flickr. The world just got a little flatter. For the record, I like the original better. Kris’ work has a particular look, and I think that the retouching fundamentally changed that.
The folks that did the retouching are at PixArt.
Update: Now the locals are into the game
The PMA show is coming soon, and the camera companies are starting to make their product announcements in anticipation of the show. I’ve been hoping, like many others, that there would be some nice relevant camera introductions, by which I mean a replacement for the Canon 30D / response to the excellent Nikon D200, and/or a second generation Canon 5D. There’s nothing wrong with my Rebel XT, and it’s been a fine compliment to hear photographers that I respect exclaim when they find out I am shooting with the lowly Rebel. There’s lots more room for me to grow with what I have, but there are a number of limitations that I’ve run up against. If a new body came out that addressed them all, then I might be interested.
Instead of a “relevant” camera, Canon announced the EOS 1D-MK III, which takes the spot in the Canon lineup typically reserved for sports, photojournalists and so forth. These are the “real” professional cameras, and they cost major money. So much money, in fact, that I’ve never really bothered to learn much about them. This time, I thought it was worth taking a look, because it’s likely that some of the features of the MK III will make their way into a camera that would be relevant to me. Canon has published a big white (marketing) paper about the camera. I think that I probably shouldn’t have looked at that, because there are lots of refinements and features that look really appealing. Imaging Resource has a preview of the new Canon 1D-MK III, including pictures shot at ISO 6400. Since I do a lot of low-light shooting, I was pretty interested in this. The picture quality at 6400 looks much better than my XT at 1600. I can only hope that some lower end camera will also do ISO 6400.
I wish someone had told me how much photography was going to cost before I started….
Update: Of course, that’s the EOS 1D MK III, not the 1Ds. I told you I never paid much attention to the pro cameras.
Argh! I am disappointed that I missed Flickr’s 3rd birthday celebration. From the tagged photos it looked like great fun…
Last weekend was the second annual Bainbridge Island Chinese New Year celebration, sponsored by the Bainbridge Island Chinese Connection. Last year, I went alone (the girls had the flu) and shot some pictures in the rain. This year, the whole family went, it was sunny, and I shot pictures on behalf of the BI Chinese Connection. It turns out the my Flickr set from last year (and scarily enough, this year, already!) are the top hit for the search term “Bainbridge Island Chinese New Year”. Earlier this year one of the organizers discovered this, tracked me down and asked me to shoot for them this year. I was only too happy to oblige. In addition to the Lion Dance and parade which happened last year, this year there was also a collection of traditional Chinese performances on the eve of the celebration. Here are a few of my favorites from this year’s set.
In keeping with her recent video efforts, Julie also put up some video of the various events.
Congratulations to Eric and Rose Soroos on the birth of their new baby boy.
Eric has been doing a wonderful series of Strobist inspired pregnancy photos (not safe for work). So if you are into Strobist stuff, you’ll probably want to check them out. I’m sad that the series has come to an end, but I am sure we’ll be seeing a new series soon.
