A practical evening ... ??? Well that's what it was supposed to be according to our programme! A good evening of learning all about lighting and how to apply it to portraiture. That was something I was looking forward to as I'm not very comfortable at directing people on how I would like them to pose so I was hoping to get some pointers from the more capable portrait photographers in the club. However, and I've said this before, current events had different ideas and the committee had to come up with something that would be a suitable alternative while sticking to the same theme of lighting and portraiture.
Stepping up to the plate at short notice was Dave Severn who, although not a member at our club, was prepared to talk about his approach to studio photography and the equipment he uses. We were introduced to a plethora of different bits of kit including umbrellas, soft boxes, rice bowls (yes, that was what he called it - and I have to admit it did look a bit like a rice bowl ... !), beauty dishes (not that the dish looked beautiful but it was more for the benefit of the model), barn doors (for reducing the amount of light - not for closing after the horse has bolted ... !), grids, gels (coloured bits of plastic rather than stuff you squeeze from a tube!) and various other 'modifiers'. Probably the most amusing and definitely the cheapest is the chip shop chip tray - after you've eaten the chips out of it of course - which can be used as a white reflector when stuck to your flash gun. Oh, there are also those foldy-up reflectors that come in a variety of colours - white, silver, gold, translucent and black (???). The unfortunate thing about these is that once you take them out of their 30cm diameter case and they expand to some gigantic size, and you have the devil's own job to fold it back up again at the end of the shoot - probably best leave it out and propped up against wall for later!
YouTube has a wealth of videos on the subject (as well as almost anything else you could think of for that matter) so it was a difficult choice to come up with a couple to show. Gavin Hoey has a channel with some very instructional videos so one of his on High Speed Synch vs Neutral Density filters to control the exposure of the background keeping it suitably out of focus whilst keeping the subject suitably exposed and pin sharp.
For those completely new to flash, The Photographers Academy has a video that very comprehensively describes the functions of a Speedlight.
A couple of videos that I managed to hunt out and found informative was one by Sean Tucker on “Shooting Portraits with One Speedlight” (and some ancillary equipment like an umbrella and a reflector (yes, one of those foldy-up ones).
Another one did a very good job of explaining the inverse square law (oops - have I lost you now?). Don’t worry, it doesn’t go into the maths and physics behind the law but shows you practically how it works - oh and it’s by Gavin Hoey again so check out “What Is Light Fall Off”. Isn’t that a more friendly title than “How to Make The Inverse Square Law Work For You”!
26 November 2020
.Here are the links to the videos from the night as well as the two additional videos that I found interesting. Unfortunately as with most YouTube videos these have adverts at the start and at intervals throughout so you will have to skip them if you can or bear with them until they have finished.
The Photographer Academy - Speedlite Basics: Getting Started