Photography :: “Drawing with Light”

Did you know the word “photography” literally means in Greek “drawing or painting with light” – Photos= light; graph= draw or paint. I love that artistic description. The most important part of every photo is LIGHT! Getting the correct “exposure” can be difficult and intimidating. As a photographer, I have trained myself to “see” light, or I should say “evaluate” light for the best photo opportunity. And it’s darn hard. But over the years, I have gained confidence in my ability; and today I added to that confidence a new level of understanding artificial lighting thanks to Zach & Jody ‘s Workshop with GrayPhotograph.com. I joined 20 other photographers from around the US (and Puerto Rico!) to learn about lighting ratios, equipment, lighting patterns AND MORE. We then had the opportunity to take photos in 8 different set ups, collaborate and evaluate. We each got to direct and completely set up one shot to put into practice what we had learned. I was soooo inspired! These techniques will be great to add to a Senior, Engagement, Family, PR & Weddings in addition to continuing to shoot & understand natural light. SO, I’m super excited to put these new skills into practice soon!

Here are a few of my photos from the workshop. But although I manually set the ISO, F-stop & Shutter and clicked my camera, these shots were a group effort and of course achieved with the direction of our instructors (which also included David and Tammy Molnar). I did have the opportunity to set up these first photos (above). I loved the natural light on her hair, so we had her step out of the shadow (from the hill) so the light fell naturally around her from behind. Then we supplemented the strobe (bottom edge of the soft box at chin height) at 70% (3:1 ratio) in front. You can see that the light “painted” her beautifully! And at this ratio, we got a nice rich sky and background. And you know I LOVE the sun flare!

I took these set of photos on AV with complete natural light to see the difference:

This set of photo compares natural light with natural light supplemented with one strobe.

I used the fun fish eye (15mm) for this extreme shot! Yep, these are abandoned construction tractors. Super cool!

These photos compare strobe light position Glamor vs. Board and composition Tight vs. Wide (again with the fish-eye).

And here’s a shot of us all working with the three set ups and models. I really enjoyed my experience and definitely learned a lot – but as always when I’m with a group of photographers, I am equally encouraged & challenged by them. It was fun to get to know new photographers and be inspired by their talent.