At the weekend I took a trip down to Wiltshire for a “Creative Lighting” workshop hosted by Terry Hewlett (www.terryhewlett.com). It had been postponed twice already due to inclement weather so I was really looking forward to finally getting on with it. There was just myself and one other photographer, along with Terry, the instructor, and a model, the lovely Sarah. [more]
We shot primarily with the Elinchrom Ranger Quadra Kit using Skyports and a host of soft boxes, umbrellas, grids etc
I shot the vast majority with the Nikon 18-200mm VR though I did get the Sigma 10-20mm out for the occasional wide angle shot. I did get a chance to borrow the 70-200 F2.8 from the other guy on the workshop though unfortunately using outdoor lighting and having to stop down the lens to balance the ambient, I didn’t really get the opportunity to see the lovely bokeh that this lens is reputed to produce at its shallowest.
We shot in 3 completely different types of location which presented us with completely contrasting sets of lighting conditions and enabled us to try several differing lighting set ups and arrangements at each location.
All in all it was an excellent workshop & I’d highly recommend it to any photographer who wants to get a better understanding of outdoor portrait lighting. It has however presented me with a little dilemma as I am now even more undecided, if it were possible, as to whether to get myself a bunch of SB900s or to go with a portable studio lighting setup like the Elinchroms or the Westcotts. Obviously a portable studio setup would be far more powerful, yet the strobes have portability on their side. Both options have their pros and cons.
The other bonus I got from the workshop was that it has given me a whole host of ideas for topics and locations that hadn’t otherwise occurred to me. The plan now is to get myself some lights, a couple of reliable models, get some serious practice in and try and develop a style of my own
For the inquisitive amongst you, the above image was processed in Nik Software’s SilverEfex. I converted it to TMax 100, reduced the brightness a little, added a couple of control points to raise the contrast and brightness on the dress and the model’s face and vignetted a tad.
