Portrait Lighting Class

It’s been awhile since I shot anything in a studio. About a decade actually, in my high school photo class. Back when I could shoot black and white and get to develop and print my own images. Good times I tell you, though I somehow didn’t retain much of what I’d learned. I’d decided I wanted to attend a few workshops and photo walks this year, and was treated to a great opportunity right away.

I’m fortunate enough to live within immediate driving distance of quite a few great photo stores. Calumet happens to have a location about 10 minutes away, and while the store doesn’t have a huge inventory available for hands on toying with, they do have a great rental inventory and a nice class schedule. I was able to pique the interest of my wife with a intro to Portrait Lighting course and signed us both up with a little Christmas money, so thanks Mom and Aunt Phil for the class!

The class was actually two parts, so we started out with some lecture learning in the morning, then broke for lunch before coming together again for some hands on time in the studio in the afternoon. Calumet has graciously altered protocol to hire a model rather then shooting students, which was a welcome surprise. 6 of us stayed for this portion of the class, so we passed around a few Pocket Wizards (my first experience with them, and how pleasant it was!) and went through the motions with a nice 700Ws Travelite mono block light. We tested different variations of a beauty dish with diffuser and grid, along with the standard Split, Rembrandt, Butterfly, Short, Broad and Loop lighting concepts. The class stayed simple with just the one light, but it was a solid foundation, and I think we may be heading back for the location lighting class next month.

Working with the model wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it might be, and I especially enjoyed having my wife there. We made a good team I thought, and are looking forward to joining some shoots with a few meetup.com groups together in the near future. I raced home to poke around a pair of old Norman light heads that my father in law has held onto since his days as a pro. I’m presently shopping for light stands and a soft box for them. I was instantly crushed when it occurred to me the quantity of backdrop material I’d thrown away while working at a print shop. One material in particular was a perfect match for the backdrop muslins sold at the store. Maybe I can get one of the old salesman to grab a 10′x10′ leader the next time he’s at the factory for me, you know, for old times sake. And a 6 pack.