During some of our photo holiday workshops I’ll be showing you various studio lighting set-ups, how to pose a model and get the best edits using Lightroom and Photoshop.
You can checkout our photography workshops availability by clicking here. In this gallery I’ve included 12 photographs (4 sets of 3 photos per set). The model’s name is Amber Tutton - she’s a bright, energetic young lady and a joy to work with.
Here are some notes on each set: Betsy Ross and Sunglasses – in this set I wanted funky colours, so I used the Betsy Ross flag, (a precursor to the Stars and Stripes), and my youngest son’s loud green and white sunglasses. Amber is lit with a large softbox to her right and beauty dish to her left – you can see the reflection of the dish in the first shot. In shots 2 and 3 I deployed a fan tilted up to her face to get her hair moving. Square Format – this type of star-shaped pose is ideal for a square format crop. I lit Amber with a single beauty dish pointing directly at her, (about head-height), forcing a hard shadow behind her. Black & White – I swung the beauty dish round to Amber’s left at about two o’clock as you look at her. I got her turn her torso to her right, but then twist her shoulders and head to her left. The light can then play on her back and neck muscles. The B&W conversion was done in Photoshop. You should never shoot B&W because you're then stuck with whatever Canon, Nikon, or whoever, has determined what B&W should look like! Hand Placement – quite often if a photo looks odd it’s because the hands have not been placed properly…and badly placed hands can totally ruin a picture. Here I directed Amber to move her arms and hands into interesting positions. I think the first in the set works best as the left hand and arm lead the eye into the frame, then the right arm takes you up to the tilted head. I also deployed my secret light diffuser!
