Posts tagged Strobist

Simple and Effective Three Light Portrait Setup

Dec07
2011 Leave a Comment Written by KerryG

After learning the ins and outs of your camera, the next thing you generally want to do is to start working on your portrait skills. One of the biggest challenges is figuring out how to get really good lighting without spending more on lighting than you did on your camera. I have been promoting a pretty simple three light portrait setup that is very simple to use and creates excellent results with a minimum of work. This setup is so easy and effective that you will see it used anywhere mass portraits are done such as on cruise ships.

For more information on this, please read the entire article at CameraDojo.com.

Posted in Blog, For Photographers - Tagged , , , ,

Impromptu Portrait Setup at MDA Christmas Party

Dec05
2011 Leave a Comment Written by KerryG

My wife is the patient liaison for the MDA so she often volunteers me to work different events as the photographer. At a recent Christmas party my wife had told me that she wanted me to come and “just take some event photos”. While this sounded like a good idea at the time, when I got there and saw all the families there I decided that I wanted to do a portrait setup for them. The problem was, most of my gear was back in the studio and I only had what was in my camera bag and the trunk of my car.

In the trunk I found an 8′ light stand, but no umbrella or softbox. In the camera bag I had a couple of flashes and a large and mediium ExpoImaging Rouge Flashbender. While not really an ideal portrait setup, I figured I would use a flash on the stand with the large FlashBender as the key light. While this would give some decent directional light, the shadows would be pretty harsh and without another good modifier I needed a way to soften the shadows. The simple solution was to use another flash on-camera with the medium Flashbender. By throwing the light from the flash on the camera, this would help soften shadows and fill in any dark spots.

Did I pull it off with an absolute minimum of equipment, you be the judge.

Posted in Blog, Events, For Photographers - Tagged , , , ,

Been on the road lately

Mar15
2011 Leave a Comment Written by KerryG

Hopefully things are going to start to return some some degree of normality around here soon. In the past three weeks I have spent more time on the road than I have at home. Don’t feel too sorry for me, as I have been having a great time traveling around teaching people how to improve their photography with off-camera lighting.

This past weekend myself and fellow photographer buddy Chris Diset joined forces with Nations Photo Lab to demo off-camera lighting techniques at the Pro Photo Expo in Pasadena. Over the three days, hundreds and hundreds of people came by to see what we were doing and even to take shots with our great models.

On Friday, we started off with Monique La Barr who was a great sport the entire day and really helped draw attention to the Nations Photo Lab booth. Here are a few of my favorite shots from Friday.

On Saturday I was thrilled to have two of my daughters with me. Andi Garrison was there to do makeup while Taylor Thorne rocked the house with her modeling. In the booth next to use was Backdrop Outlet who loaned us a cool purple background for the day. Some of my favorite shots from Saturday include these:

On Sunday, Monique was back along with a different background from Backdrop Outlet.

Of course, I have to throw in a couple shots of the team. The first pic below is Chris hamming it up for the camera and the second shot are my two girls.

Want to learn more about off-camera flash and help make your images better, be sure and check out all my tutorials at http://cameradojo.com and my lighting products at http://blackbeltlighting.com.

Posted in Blog, Events, For Photographers - Tagged , , , , , ,

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