Photography Workshops: April 2013

This time I will write about the photos taken during the studio workshops on photographing models that I recently organized. Preparing for them took a lot of time. I was unsure what form they should take, because some people expect a low price while others want everything to be as professional as possible. At the beginning of the year I decided that my workshops would involve no compromises: a very small group of four, so everyone could take photos in turn rather than all at once, my best models, the best makeup artist, and a large studio. The participants traveled hundreds of kilometers to attend, so I must have chosen the right direction :).

First there was a fairly long theory lecture about which lights to use for what, which modifiers, why small rather than large, when to use soft light and when to use harder light, for example for rim light, hair light, etc. There was quite a lot of it, but these details are very important. After discussing them, we moved on to the part that mattered most: taking photos.

I began by using Klaudia Danch, my discovery of 2010, to show how I usually shoot beauty: what I pay attention to, how I frame, why I arrange the lights this way rather than another, and so on. This was the final photo:

Nikon D700 | Nikkor 135mm 2D DC | F/8 | 1/160 s | ISO 200

The makeup was done by Karolina Zientek. The starting setup was the one I use for the vast majority of photographs: a 70 cm beauty dish with a grid, an umbrella to light the eyes, a light for the background, and rim lights (one bare to emphasize the hairstyle). The background light was not essential. The background was bright enough without it, but too even, and I do not like that.

After a break and far too many pizzas, we moved on to the fashion part. Beata Maj posed for us. She was my discovery of 2012, although I sometimes call her the discovery of the decade. You have already seen her in two of my earlier shoots, including this one.

I started with theory again, then showed everything in practice. First we used a 180 cm octabox, a modifier that makes no sense to me for photographing models. Its advantage is that it is almost impossible to take a bad photo with it. There are more disadvantages. Above all, you cannot get the atmosphere I like: distinct shadows, an unevenly lit background, strong contrast... After a few test shots, I moved it aside and took what I like.

No, not a beauty dish... The conditions were perfect for using it to light the entire figure. Things are usually not that good, however, so I wanted to show how to cope when space is limited. Instead of a BD, I used strips, meaning narrow but tall softboxes. They measured 40 x 180 cm because those were the ones available at ISO100 Studio, where the workshops took place. One strip served as the main light and the other as the rim light. Since I prefer hard rim light, the main diffusion layer was removed.

Nikon D700 | Sigma 50mm 1,4 EX DG HSM | F/6,3 | 1/200 s | ISO 200

A reflector also blocked the light reaching part of the background. I simply wanted that section to be in shadow. I could darken it during editing, but why do that when the problem can be solved immediately?

As you can see, I converted the finished photos to black and white. Google had recently given me the Silver Efex Pro 2 plugin as a present, and I received several others with it. The distribution method had changed, and people who already owned one plugin in the series received all the rest. People who had spent more money were also entitled to a refund. Silver Efex Pro 2 is a plugin for converting photos to black and white. It is very easy to use but has plenty of additional options, so this was a perfect opportunity to use it. I had used Silver Efex Pro before, but only briefly and only as a trial. I do not normally make black-and-white photos, so I did not particularly need it. I will write about this plugin and the rest of the Nik Collection series in a dedicated post, or perhaps several.

Nikon D700 | 85 mm | F/6,3 | 1/200 s | ISO 200

Nikon D700 | 85 mm | F/6,3 | 1/200 s | ISO 200

Drive failure

I saved the photos directly to a computer connected to a monitor so everyone could see the results immediately. This transfers the photographs without using the memory card. Unfortunately, the drive started causing problems and will probably need to be thrown away. It is already the second one in a few months... At first, it looked as if all the photographs were gone. Fortunately, I managed to recover some of them by copying them one at a time to another drive. I will probably bring in some data-recovery software as well to save the remaining frames.

I make backups every hour, but I did not have a backup drive with me during the shoot. I learned my lesson: even then, I need to copy the data to another drive as I work.

Summary

We also made a setup against a wall to show how to cope with cheap, portable equipment, but I was only taking test photos then and still need to recover them. Beata Maj also appeared in other outfits, but only the participants photographed those, so that is all from my photos for now.