Creative Techniques in Portrait Lighting
© Bobbi Lane
This dynamic studio workshop is designed for photographers who are ready to take the next step in portrait lighting. A truly meaningful portrait consists of skill, talent and ideas in order for the viewer to be moved and impressed by the image. The Friday night meeting will be about concepts, creativity and interpretation of the subject, and matching the light with the idea. There will also be a general review of lighting techniques to include Beauty, Drama and Edgy. Saturday and Sunday mornings will be spent demonstrating and presenting a variety of essential and creative portrait lighting techniques such as perfecting the butterfly light, creating drama with grids and strip lights, using beauty dishes, broad and soft lighting through bouncing, diffusion panels and reflectors, working with available light, and dragging the shutter. More importantly, we will explore why these techniques are used to help the photographer convey the mood, feeling and essence of their subjects. In the afternoon sessions, each student will have a hands-on opportunity to put this knowledge to use working with live models. The emphasis will be on the creative process with attention to detail, thereby producing outstanding, powerful photographs.
On Saturday and Sunday, students will enjoy the use of The Focus Studio (www.thefocusstudio.com), a beautiful 3,000 square foot studio located on Venice Beach. Participants must be familiar with strobe lighting and basic use of umbrellas, soft boxes and grids. As this will be a digital class, students are encouraged to bring a laptop to edit and process images.
Bobbi Lane (www.bobbilane.com) is an award-winning commercial portrait photographer with 30 years of experience. She shoots environmental portraits for corporate and advertising accounts as well as photographing “real people” and locations for stock. Her extensive client list includes Warner Bros., PricewaterhouseCoopers, Samsung, Bose Corp., Neutrogena, Charles Schwab, Mattel, Sears' Tower Skydeck, and the Morro Bay Natural History Museum. A dedicated educator, Bobbi teaches photography at ICP, the Santa Fe Workshops, the Maine Photographic Workshops, and the Julia Dean Photo Workshops. She is a Contributing Editor for Photo Techniques Magazine and the author of Creative Techniques in Color Photography and Advertising Photography with Lou Lesko. Bobbi’s instructional DVDs “Portrait Lighting Techniques” and “Portraits Unplugged” are available through Calumet.
