These are examples of the student’s work from this past week on lighting that I taught in the School of Photography 1, which is part of Youth With A Mission’s University of the Nations campus in Kona, Hawaii.
This class was the first time most of the course used studio strobes.
Without flash — Photo by Andrea Klaussner
With flash — Photo by Andrea Klaussner
They learned how to use off-camera flash on location. The assignment required them to hand in one photo without a flash and one with it. Some of the student’s photos looked better without a flash, and sometimes you don’t need a flash.
Without flash — Photo by Lizz Busby
With flash — Photo by Lizz Busby
The bread and butter assignment for a photographer is the environmental portrait. Taking a poor lighting situation and improving it was the purpose of the assignment, as well as knowing how to make it.
The students took a baseline photo without a flash and below the sync speed for their camera. Then they made a flash reading setting the strobe to be one stop greater than the aperture reading without the flash. They then only changed the aperture to the great one-stop aperture that was the flash setting. They were also encouraged to see if more power from the flash was better for the photo.
1:3 Lighting Ratio Assignment
In an earlier blog post, you can see the students’ assignments. First, they needed the leading light [key] at 45º from the camera, with the model looking straight into the camera. We did this to help them see the shadow across the nose. They then had a fill light one stop less than the leading light.
They could use different backgrounds from White, Gray, or color.
Photo by Debbie Smit
Photo by Erik Wuesthoff
Photo by Keziah Khoo
Photo by Lizz Busby
Photo by Oo Shinoda
Photo by Melissa Kelsey
I think the students all did a great job, and in less than a week, each person had a potential of a couple of photos to add to their portfolios.
