I love teaching at the School of Photography, run by my good friend Dennis Fahringer. I think it is the best school of photography I have come across. Here is a link to learn more about the school.
I love to teach lighting. One of the setups I love to teach is one I learned first from my Uncle Knolan Benfield.
He is the one that taught me what a 3:1 Light Ratio setup looks like and why I should know how to shoot it.
These are some of the shots that the students produced last week during my time teaching at the School of Photography in Kona, Hawaii.
The problem with too contrasty lighting is that when it is reproduced in something like a newspaper, the shadows go black. The 3:1 ratio produces a good shadow on newspaper print yet still has some modeling on the face.
Here is a blog post that goes step by step on how to shoot it.
I wanted you to see how students who had never done lighting before my time with them could not just master it but get great expressions as well of their subjects.
They learned that having an excellent solid lighting setup can free you to work on expressions and pose.
They also were challenged to write a little story on their subjects. John Davidson wrote this about his subject.
Stan was a farmer who raised potatoes, alfalfa, and wheat and grew marijuana. Unfortunately, he also smoked marijuana and used many harder drugs. His life was a mess, and he almost killed himself. He went to a Drug & Treatment Center and got clean. He retired after working 27 years at Idaho National Laboratory as a nuclear reactor Operator/Instructor.
The idea is that sharing a photo with a story with the picture makes it so much more exciting, and people come back to look for more.
What do you think of these students’ photos they made of people?