Office Portraits

I recently did an assignment here is Denver for a Boston based company.  They contacted me in regards to doing some portraits in their Denver office.  I found this nice hallway to use as a background for one of the locations.  The lighting was from the camera right position, one SB-800 behind some frosted glass produced a very nice soft light.  Here is the set-up shot.

The flash was fitted with a full CTO gel and the white balance on the camera set to tungsten, producing a nice light blue background.

The second location was in their break room (kitchen). I liked the color of the painting in the hallway and chose to use it as a background. Here is the set-up shot and the final.  I use a FourSquare™ from Lightware Direct for my key light, just one SB-800 inside it.

Croatia & Venice Carnevale Trek

This will be a highlight for 2015, a photo adventure you should not miss. I'll be joining my friend and fellow Mentor Reed Hoffmann on a spectacular trip to Croatia and Venice Italy. We'll be visiting many UNESCO World Heritage Sites on this trek. The old city of Dubrovnik is situated on the Dalmatian coast, and became an important Mediterranean sea power from the 13th century onward. Dubrovnik features Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque churches, monasteries, and palaces. A beautiful city for sure.

After Dubrovnik, we'll be visiting Trogir & the Plitvice Lakes. Trogir ("island of goats") is an island settlement that dates back to the Hellenistic periord around the 3rd century BC. The town flourished during the Roman period, outsatanding architure to be sure.

I am really looking forward to seeing the Plitvice Lakes, another UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We'll wrap up our trek with a visit to Venice Italy of Carnevale. Photo walking tour of St. Marks Square, Doge's Palace and portraits of masked models. I was in Venice last year and I'm very happy to be returning.

We still have a few spaces available, if your interested in joining me on this trek and would like more information, contact the Mentor Series for more details. I hope that you will consider joining me on this wonderful trip. DT

Puchberg SSBR Oct. 18 & 19

We had such a great demand from participants that we held another Puchberg workshop on the 18th & 19th. We had 10 talented student eager to learn new skills and techniques. You can see what the workshop setting looked like here.

Here we shifted the white balance to tungsten and used a small softbox over head.  The flash had a full CTO to balance with the tungsten WB.

Here another set up to digest.

You can see here that we used a set of barn doors to provide a small amount of light.

I used a small softbox in the foreground and a snoot with a grid on it to light the photo on the wall.

Below we see a classic Clamshell type lighting, glamour light if you will.

Here is a collection of the participants work during the workshop, great job everyone.  I want to thank everyone who attended our workshop during the past 3 weeks and a very very special thanks to my best friend Eric Krugl.

Eric, thank you so very much for the hard work you put into arrranging these workshops. WOW!

Zurich, Switzerland SSBR Workshop Oct 14 & 15

I was absolutely delighted to teach a workshop in Zurich, Switzerland during my tour.  We were hosted by Light + Byte camera store, where they have a large studio and training facility. Our model for the day was a very nice young lady by the name Julia.  Thanks so much for spending the day with us.  The morning session was spent on lighting theory and after lunch we started shooting.  Here are the photos as well as the set ups.

We are using a large black board to block fill which was being provided from a white wall camera left.

Some artifical sunlight provided by an SB-900 out side of the window with a full CTO.

By placing a chair on it's side, I was able to use the chair back which had holes cut in it to project light thru it for a background light.

A simple 5 in 1 using it's translucent material provide some nice soft light, shown above.

I was using the new Round Flash Beauty Dish light for the key light.

I had a wonderful time in Switzerland, it had been 40 years since my last visit... I hope it won't take as long for my return.  lol that would make me almost 120 years old.

Dornbirn SSBR Workshop Oct. 11 & 12

Dornbirn is in Western Austria, very near the Liechtenstein and Swiss boarder. I've been here 3 times now and just love it!  This was a two day workshop held after the Masterclass.  Let's have a look at all the activity and photo produced during the workshop.

Below is the available light before the flash was turned on.

I had 4 intern students that just rocked.... best student ever.

Dornbirn AAP Masterclass Workshop Oct 10

This was year visiting Dornbirn, Austria.  What a wonderful location, just minutes to the Swiss boarder.  I had the pleasure to have 14 Masterclass participants in my one day workshop.  The masterclass is part of the students continuing education program.  Let's have a look at the set ups and photos from the day.

We started the day leaning about the theory of light and then after lunch we demonstrated various lighting techniques. I always like to start with a proper bounce.

 

In this example, I placed the flash behind the subject allowing some of the light to strike the hair and shoulder before hitting the wall for the bounce.  Here is the set up shot, the umbrella was used to shade the subject from strong daylight from the skylight.

Here we used a collapsed umbrella to control spill on the back wall.

Here we used a barn door on the flash to shape the light as well as adding a small softbox for fill.

 

Here is a photo using only a piece of nylon rip-stop fabric attached to a window.... nice soft light.

For the final shot of the day, a classic sports look.

It was an honor to teach a masters class in Dornbirn, I look forward to returning soon.