I love teaching small-class lighting workshops. But because of time constraints, I only teach them once or twice a year. (These days, most of my scaleable time is devoted to building X-Peditions into the best program of its kind.)

When lighting workshops do open up, they fill very quickly — often before many people even know they were available. So I have decided to port the notification list approach that we use with X-Peditions into use with the lighting workshops as well.

This should help to smooth the signup process, and to make it fairer for all involved.
Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2019/10/lighting-workshop-interest-list.html

UPDATE: Both workshops filled very quickly. I only do these about once a year; apologies for the imbalance. I have set up a system so people who are potentially interested in future small-class lighting workshops can receive advance notice. More info here.
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I'll be teaching two, full-day lighting workshops in the suburban Baltimore/DC area on December 6 and 7.

They are two separate one-day events. These are small-group workshops, with a maximum class size of 12 people each day. These are shooting workshops, and you'll be behind (and/or in front of!) a camera for most of the day.

Assuming you arrive at this class with a basic understanding of f/stops and shutter speeds, you will leave with a strong foundation in the fundamentals of off-camera lighting. You will be comfortable using single and multiple lights both alone and/or balanced with a mix of ambient lighting.

All lighting gear will be provided. We will also provide lunch.

You will need to bring a camera that is adjustable in manual mode and has a hot shoe connection for a flash, a lens that covers normal and/or portrait range, one or two fully charged batteries and an empty storage card. Maybe a notebook and pen if you like.

That's it. Just show up ready to learn and to have fun. Leave the rest to me.


Details

Dates:
December 6 and 7, 2019

Time:
9:30am - 5:30pm

Price:
$259

Location:
Sandy Spring Friends Lyceum
17715 Meeting House Road
Sandy Spring, MD 20860


Note; These are the only small-class lighting workshops I'll be teaching in the US this year. In the past, these have tended to fill very quickly. So if this is something you'd like to do, I'd suggest signing up sooner rather than later.


Sign-Up Links

Friday, December 6 [FRIDAY'S CLASS HAS BEEN FILLED]

Saturday, December 7 [SATURDAY'S CLASS HAS BEEN FILLED]

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2019/10/announcing-2-small-class-lighting.html

Today in Lighting Cookbook, using Google Maps as an entr'e to meet new subjects, and improvising with a skeleton pack of lighting equipment. Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2019/09/slc-2l-09-google-maps-as-visa-bts-360.html

You do something long enough, you'll eventually learn the little things you can do to help interesting stuff happen. One thing I have learned is this phrase:

"I'm a photographer. What can I do to help you?"

Just something as simple as that opens up all kinds of doors and possibilities. This week, it's how I ended up shooting Mexican sodas on a table-top studio in my basement.
Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2019/08/slc-2l-08-mexican-sodas-bts-360.html

White marble, dark chocolate, one light source. Problem?

Not at all. Because pretty much everything you can actually see across the top of that box is not really the "correct" tonality of the chocolate. It's all specular highlights.

Controlling the density of specular highlights is what compresses the subject's wide tonal range and unifies everything into one smooth exposure.
__________Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2019/07/slc-1l-09-compressing-tonal-range-with.html

Hope Kahn is a Maryland-based journalist who is doing all of the sorts of things I was doing at her age: honing her writing and reporting skills, putting out a student newspaper, and always scrambling to find a good local story.

But that's where the similarities stop. Over the last couple of years she's been punching way above her weight class, having been published in national outlets such as Ms. and The New York Times. Suffice to say those are not exactly things I had accomplished before graduating high school.

More important, she writes about subjects that are touchstones for her generation. Her work with #SinceParkland is a great example of someone from Generation Lockdown working to effect change for her peers.

Recently we did some head shots. The idea was to help her with visually branding herself as the serious, thoughtful journalist she is fast becoming. The setup we used was classic Lighting 101 head-shot-in-a-corner fare, with an L102 and L103 twist. Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2019/06/journalist-hope-kahn.html

Just a quick heads-up for anyone based in Europe that I'll be teaching several classes at the Porto Photo Fest on October 12-13 this fall. This is the only time I'll be teaching in a public event this year.

The folks at PFF gave us a lot of control in structuring the classes (which they may live to regret!) But we think we have come up with some really cool stuff.

PLEASE NOTE: There is currently early bird pricing in effect. So if you might be interested, it's worth acting in a timely manner.


Co-Teaching with Sara Lando

I'm stoked to once be again collaborating with Sara Lando, one of the most creative people (and brilliant photographers) that I know. We will be co-teaching a class, something we last did together in Ireland in 2017.

This Sunday, October 13 class will be on photographing people. It will be taught from two different perspectives. Sara and I will essentially be representing the right and left sides of your brain respectively.

We'll be flipping back and forth from between the lighting/technical side and the interpersonal/creative side. This is a class designed both to enhance your strengths and, more important, to really go after your weaknesses. At some point Sara and I will probably get into an argument. (Not to worry, she's Italian, so this is perfectly normal.)

This setup is probably my very favorite approach to teaching lighting, because it interweaves some more organic/human/creative layers with f/stops and lighting techniques.

The course description is not very detailed, so here is what you should know. We'll be a class of (max) 20 people, usually split into two groups of ten. We'll work all day progressively hitting both the interpersonal stuff (with Sara) and the technical stuff (with me.)

We will further separate into smaller groups of 3-4 people, and you'll be shooting all day. Lighting equipment will be provided. If time permits, we may bust out a little Iron Chef-style competition at the end of the day. We'll have to see. No matter what, this class will be both fast-paced and fun.


Portrait Class details and signup



In the Fish Bowl

Later Sunday evening, Sara and I will transition from our co-class to an onstage event where we'll be putting some of these yin-yang principles to the test in front of an audience, real-time, mistakes and all. Think of it as a tag-team portrait session between two brains that think nothing alike.

If you are in the day class, you are automatically included in the evening event. But you can also attend separately.



(Way) Outside the Box

On Saturday morning (October 12) I'll be doing a 3-hour talk on some of the things we usually don't think about as photographers. But these are things that, in retrospect, probably should have been obvious. This is an evolution of a talk I have given in Seattle, Berlin and London.

This class is designed to help you to integrate your photography with the rest of your non-photo life skills and expertises; to learn to think of photography not as an end-all but as a catalyst for creating more powerful and unique other things.

We'll look at how other photographers have quietly applied this approach to great ends, and I'll help you to roadmap how you can learn to adapt this thought process to your own situation.

In short, the key to being able to compete effectively with the bajillion other image makers out there is to create, and then own, a very un-level playing field. Because if life is not going to be fair anyway, it should at least be unfair in your favor.

Class details and signup

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2019/06/teaching-at-porto-photo-fest-this.html

This week, Ben, my youngest, graduates from high school. Which for any photographer dad also means senior photos. We obliged mom with a standard version, shot in the back yard with a soft box and underexposed foliage as a backdrop.

But we also wanted to do something a little cooler, of the real Ben: at his desk, late at night, appropriately doing some kind of science/engineering.

So this is what we came up with. Lit simply, the fill light was an on-camera flash. The key light was... a pencil.
Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2019/05/slc-1l-08-senior-photo.html

The Godox AD200 has been much written about (and fawned over) for good reason: it's a legit 200ws flash in a near-speedlight form factor that has a lot going for it.

At $299, as packaged, it's a near-miss. But at $366 (including two specific accessories) it's a home run. Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2019/04/godox-ad200-amazing-flash-if-you-tweak.html

Thirteen years ago this month, Strobist.com launched with a cutting edge design (heh) and a novel mission (at the time) to be a free source of education for small flash lighting techniques.

Today, a triskaideka-appropriate post: thirteen of the most important principles I have learned related to lighting.
Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2019/03/a-bakers-dozen-13-key-ideas.html

I am happy to announce my brand new studio. It features hardwood floors and a seamless, backlit ceiling as its primary light source.

Sadly, like many studios, this one is a little on the small side: it measures exactly one cubic foot. But that's fine, as this workspace was designed specifically for one subject: chocolates.

Today, we'll be harkening back to the roots of this website, namely working with cardboard and glue to solve a problem for next to nothing. Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2019/02/slc-oe-06-chocolate-box-studio.html

Much like a welterweight fighter, a leaf-shuttered camera and a speedlight in a mini softbox throws a punch that is much harder than you'd expect. Even outdoors, in midday light.

Case in point, these portraits of Cuban boxer Osmany Barcelay. Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2019/01/slc-1l-07-small-fast-and-powerful.html

Our eyes are wonderful devices. They are autofocus, auto-zoom, autoexposure, and (to a large degree) auto white balance. Our cameras, on the other hand, see things more objectively.

Today, how to finesse that difference when adding light.


Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2018/12/living-in-in-between.html

Today on Lighting Cookbook, something different: A BTS/360 look at a single photo.

Normally, we concentrate on the "how" part. But today we'll also be looking at the broader ecosystem— the why—and how a simple photo can serve as a catalyst to create value.

Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2018/11/2l-04-thank-you-bts360.html

Strobist's 2019 X-Peditions workshops (Havana in January and Hanoi in the fall) have both filled.

Hanoi actually filled before any public announcement. So if you think you might be interested in a future workshop, please make sure to sign up for advance notice on the X-Peditions info page.

If you would like to be placed on a wait list for either trip, you may do so at the individual workshop pages linked above.

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2018/11/strobists-x-peditions-2019-workshops.html

Strobist's 2019 X-Peditions workshops (Havana in January and Hanoi in the fall) have both filled.

Hanoi actually filled before any public announcement. So if you think you might be interested in a future workshop, please make sure to sign up for advance notice on the X-Peditions info page.

If you would like to be placed on a wait list for either trip, you may do so at the individual workshop pages linked above.

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2018/11/strobists-x-peditions-2019-workshops.html

As Halloween approaches, a timely story about a little prank available to any lighting photographer. All you need is a remote flash trigger, a clueless friend and the maturity level of a 12-year-old.


Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2018/10/opportunity-knocks.html

Normally, you might think of a grid spot for what it creates: a tight zone of light. But it also can be helpful to think of it in terms of the inverse: a grid also prohibits light from reaching everywhere else.

And the "everywhere else" part—that relative blackness you can create with a gridded key—is what can help you to amp the color palette in even a small room with light-toned walls.


Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2018/10/slc-2l-04-use-tight-grid-to-create-color.html

No matter how long you have been doing something, be it lighting or photography or, well, anything, you're never too old to be dumbstruck by a cool new idea.

Take the linens drying on the line above, for example. In the right frame of mind they are essentially super-portable outdoor light sources.


Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2018/09/scl-oe-04-cheap-portable-outdoor-light.html

Umbrellas are a great first light mod: cheap, easy to use, easy to transport. But softboxes can give you more control, both in the beam's edge and with reduced light leakage. The photo above was shot with a single speedlight and a small softbox.

Today we'll look at how to choose a softbox that will marry well with your speedlight, and do so without spending a lot of money.

Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2018/08/slc-oe-03-how-to-choose-softbox-for.html