The very popular Fundamentals of studio portrait lighting course starts it’s next term on Saturday 9th June.

This is a course of four 2 hour classes for a group of between 4 and 6 participants.

Get in touch to sign up now.

The first shot is lit with a Bowens Octa90 which we have on loan. It’s a little bit awkward to work with, but it does give lovely light.

The nude is lit using the 32″ x 48″ gridded soft box — probably one of my favourite light modifiers in the studio.

I’m always delighted when the my setup shots are as good as these. My teaching time is about me teaching and letting the students shoot — it not about me taking photos (or faffing around if I don’t get it right first time!).

Don’t forget to sign-up to the newsletter to get notification of future model days — or just get in touch if you want some one-to-one training.

Sunday 13th May: 09:00 — 13:00 and 14:00 — 18:00
Monday 14th May: 13:00 — 17:00 and 18:00 — 22:00

By working with images from the audience, Podge will demonstrate simple and quick techniques using Photoshop to enhance images over a range of genres. Each tutorial session is standalone and the content will vary with the selection of images and questions from the audience — you are welcome to attend one or more of the sessions.

Members of the Societies (SWPP) will know Podge for his Photoshop tutorials at their annual convention and a more global audience will recognise him as a presenter of Nik Software Photoshop training webinars.

Bring some images, your Photoshop questions and an appetite to learn!

Learn more and book now.

We’ve scheduled the next Fundamentals of studio portrait lighting course to start on Saturday 14th April.

This is a course of four 2 hour classes for a group of between 4 and 6 participants.

You’ll see some of my setup shots from the previous classes here on the blog: Mhairi, Kate and Jake.

Get in touch to sign up now.

These are fitted with the Bowens Pulsar internal radio triggers too — all nice and tidy with no batteries to worry about.

A nice 40″ square Bowens softbox has also been added to the mix of available modifiers and we also have the strange beast that is a Bowens Octo 90 on loan.

So while nothing has been set in stone yet, we’re discussing possible workshops with Bjorn Thomassen, Damian McGillicudy and Podge Kelly. As contributors to some of the UK magazines, Bjorn and Damien are possibly better known, but Podge and his Photoshop magic will be well known to members of The Societies (SWPP).

And Trevor & Faye Yerbury will be back too.

We hope that pricing for any of the workshops will be close to their usual advertised prices, but with the benefit that we bring the tutor here saving the delegates their travel/accommodation costs.

With all the shopping opportunities the studio wasn’t neglected though — it will also get a little upgrade with the addition of another three Bowens Gemini 500Pro monolights with Pulsar triggers. Now why anyone would generally want more than two lights I don’t know, but having the capacity is useful…

If you’re interested in any of the workshops please leave a comment below.

There are two key points to shooting with a high key white background. One is not to over-light the background — one stop brighter than the subject should be sufficient — too much spill from the background lighting will kill any contrast in your subject and in the extreme you see the ghosting on the edges. The other important issue is that the background is evenly lit (fixing the background afterwards in post-processing is just not productive).

For this set the background was metered for f/8.

The shot on the left shows an early stage in the setup — there is no key light and Fredau is lit by the spill from the background lights (shot at f/5.6). The shot on the right is maybe a little bit dark (shot at f/8) but the spill has been eliminated and Fredau is lit with a single key light.

A little bit of post-processing of the second shot yields this:

I must admit that I much prefer to shoot low key studio portraits. To save time (read as I’m lazy) we went on to shoot a low key set with the same white background. Shooting low key with a white background isn’t particularly difficult — it’s just a matter of understanding and controlling the light.

By turning the background lights off and moving Fredau and the key light away from the white background roll, we immediately cause the background to darken. Depending on the choice of modifier on the key light it might be necessary to use something to stop the light spill from the background — these were shot with the beauty dish.

The tones and textures of Fredau’s top were chosen with the intention of a final black and white image:

We finished with a clamshell setup. Clamshell lighting is generally the only two light setup that I use for portraits (I’ll use an extra light for an accent or to give separation, but the primary lighting is normally a single light).

We repeat this course a few times over the year. Check the course information page for future dates and sign up to the newsletter.

More info….

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We’ve scheduled the next Fundamentals of studio portrait lighting to start on Saturday 14th January. This is a course of four 2 hour classes for a group of between 4 and 6 participants.

You’ll see some of my setup shots from the previous course here on the blog: Mhairi, Kate and Jake.

Get in touch to sign up now.

Previously we’ve shot with charcoal and white paper backgrounds — today we used the studio wall. A bare wall is remarkably versatile and has the advantage that the subject can lean against it (unlike a paper or vinyl background).

To make the bare wall a little bit more interesting, it was lit using a strobe with a small dish and honeycomb grid to create a pool of light.

Today’s was the last class of this course. It’s impossible to teach everything in such a short course — we’ve concentrated primarily in head and shoulder shots (with an occasional diversion when time permitted). My main objective was to give the participants confidence and a general grounding in the basic lighting techniques. However, like all skills, these now require repeated practice for each participant to refine them in their own way.

Want to learn how to take studio shots like these? Sign up to the newsletter to find out about future courses.

Working with a brunette adds an extra challenge when working with a dark background, but that was the plan. Learning how to maintain separation of dark hair on a dark background is a key skill.

The brown background in these shots was achieved using a gel to light the seamless charcoal paper. The shot with the grey background was actually taken using the white paper background from a high key white setup we were using, but with the lights turned off.

Portraits aren’t always about smiles (especially not forced smiles), but Kate has a lovely natural smile.

Stuart McKenzie has blogged his shots, so you can see them too.

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Stuart McKenzie has written up this session on his blog.

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