Add Drama to Your Lighting with Joe McNally

One of the first principals of using flash, often times, is to move that flash in close. So close that it almost encroaches on the frame and the composition you are creating. Reason being, the bigger the source of light, and closer that light is to your subject, the softer, more wrapping, and more forgiving the quality of the illumination. Highlights get rounded and easy going. Shadows start softly, growing deeper gradually, and retain detail.

But what if you want sharp, hard, clearly delineated shadows? The soft approach is not the only one available to you for environmental portraiture. Occasionally, the situation at hand calls for hard, fast, dramatic light. Light that creates shadows that are like a knife edge, and go to black immediately. For this effect, it is advisable to reverse the soft light mandate of “closer and bigger is better” and make your light source small and far away.

The ballerina is being illuminated by an SB-900 hot shoe flash that is out in the street, in a rain storm, and about 90 or so feet from here. The result is drama, and strong shadows.

Learn more from Joe in his workshop
Traveling Light: Location Lighting with Small Flash
August 1-7, 2010

Visit his blog at www.joemcnally.com/blog/ to see what he's up to.

When Life Gives You Lemons... Use Adobe Photoshop with Karen Schneider

Sometimes all you need is a rainy day and a lot of lemons! Ok, so what does one have to do with the other? I'm not sure about you, but rainy days always make me hunker down (especially if you live in Southern California and you never get rain) and look at things around you. Those everyday objects you tend to ignore.

For me it was the happy Meyer Lemons, which I had recently picked, whose yellow color gave me a bright spot in an otherwise gray day. For my unlucky lemons this meant becoming the subject of my "Life in Motion" series. My intention is to record the motions that we do almost every day but that we wouldn't necessarily see or capture in one frame. Different frames are layered over each other, sharing different angles and moments of contact.

Oh thank goodness for rainy days….

Learn more about manipulating images from Karen in her workshop
Adobe Photoshop: The Art of the Digital Medium
April 5-10, 2010

Visit her web site at www.krop.com/ktsphoto/ to see what she's up to.

Break the Convention and Capture True Family Moments with Genevieve Russell

The typical family portrait, where everyone is coordinated in white or black shirts, powdered and primped, and told repeatedly to smile at the camera, don’t interest me. But, ask me to come and have blueberry pancakes, hang out and color, take a walk and photograph the nuances of a family Sunday—that is a complete joy! The resulting images act as a little time capsule, a way to preserve flashes of everyday life that don’t linger long.

A Hobbs Family StoryPortrait © StoryPortrait Media

The visual imagery can be so much more enhanced with snippets of audio. I turn the microphone on a child playing the piano, reading about Mrs. Wishy Washy, singing "Chicken Fingers," or a dad reflecting on parenthood. Editing out a few select moments and thoughts using multimedia software, I create a StoryPortrait, a vignette, a short chapter of a day in the life...

Try this approach next time you pull out the camera around family members. You'll capture moments that everyone will cherish.

Learn more from Genevieve in her workshop
Photographing People
March 7-13, 2010

Visit her blog at storyportraitmedia.blogspot.com to see what she's up to.

Techniques to Bring Out the Detail in Your Digital Landscapes with George Schaub

A consistent problem for landscape photographers is that sky and ground have different brightness levels and digital enforces highlight-biased exposures, thus the ground tends to become underexposed. Given that you must maintain highlights during exposure, there are numerous ways to process an image that can bring back full detail in the ground areas.

1. Bracket exposures and combine using Layers and Layer Masks (given no wind is blowing!)
2. Use bracket exposures for HDR
3. Take an exposure biased for the highlights, select ground/sky, and then use a screen blending mode approach with paint back on the sky.
4. Select the sky/ground and use a New Adjustment Layer.

Using any of the above techniques you can maintain highlight control and regain excellent detail in the ground area.

You can learn more about exposure and processing from George in his workshop
Crafting the Black-and-White Print
April 12-16, 2010

Visit his web site at www.georgeschaub.com to see what he's up to.

Instructor Insight: The XXX-Factor with Jennifer Spelman

We all know that to make a sharp, well-exposed photograph you need to pay attention to focus, aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. But even after you master these elements, your picture still might not have that WOW! effect. To take your photographs to the next level you need to key into something I like to call the "X-Factor" —three of them, actually.

Welcome to the realm of XXX Photography - bet you never thought you'd go there! Here are three considerations that elevate ordinary photos to the extraordinary: 

X1 - Images need a message. 
It may be an emotion, a mood, or a concept. Your photograph needs to speak to the viewer and express a feeling inherent within the subject.

X2 - Images need fitting light. 
Light can be exciting. It can be somber. It has a mood of its own. The light falling on your subject needs to advance and reinforce whatever your message is.

X3 - Images need a sense of design. 
Your viewer needs a road plan for how you want them to move through the frame. Ideally, that design supports the message you are conveying.

Next time, before you push the button, think about these concepts. Don't be intimidated... just like with aperture and shutter speed, over time these too will become second-nature. Incorporating the XXX-Factor into your process will give you the ability to add some WOW to your images!

You can learn more from Jennifer in her workshop
Basics of Digital Photography
March 21-27, 2010

Visit her blog at spelmanphotographic.wordpress.com to see what she's up to.

Jo Whaley Soars on Creative Wings

Your state of mind and how you cultivate your creativity are just as important as the time you devote to your creative practice. So how can you tap into the flow of ideas and imagination that makes photography stimulating play instead of work?

Try this warm-up exercise to loosen your imagination and hone your visual skills. It should take less than an hour.

• Choose three different subjects and photograph each subject six different ways.
• Explore differences in lighting, point of view, short and long depth of field, stop action vs. blur, and cropping .
• Each approach should be a completely different interpretation of that subject.

In my workshop we explore techniques to develop your ability to stretch your imagination and work intuitively. My years of studying the writings and work of musical composers, choreographers, painters, writers, as well as photographers, will help inform how we can soar on creative wings.

You can learn more from Jo in her workshop
The Art of Seeing
February 21-27, 2010

Visit her web site wwww.jowhaley.com to see what she's up to.

Learn the Digital Zone System with Lee Varis

Over the years much effort has been applied to photography to enhance the precision with which we record images. Digital photography has evolved to give us a range of control that far exceeds anything that Ansel Adams ever dreamed of!

However, this promise of precision and control is often hidden behind a trend in U.I. design that invites a more casual involvement in the image-making process. Everything is automated and almost all feedback data is confined to what the image looks like on screen. We are led to believe that "color management" will take care of everything. The professional image-maker needs something more... well... professional.

To this end I have developed an adaptation of the Zone System to digital technology that I share with students in my classes – take a look at a preview tutorial to give you a feel for the material. Or download the printable PDF version.

Of course I go into this in a lot more detail in class – see you there!

You can learn more from Lee in his workshop 
Portrait Photography: Beyond Skin Deep
March 7-13, 2010

Visit his web site www.varis.com to see what he's up to.

Instructor Insight: David Robin Goes with the Grain for Dramatic Portraits

Light is the photographer's primary tool.And some of the best light we might encounter needs nothing more than our ability to record what we see. Many times this requires the use of a high ISO (or fast film) and results in a grainy or a noisy image. But all is not lost to the resulting grain/noise. In fact, many of my most successful portraits have been created using this grain/noise to my advantage.

Noise indeed can be distracting in an RGB image shot at a high ISO. By simply converting the file to grayscale it can become something quite different and wonderful. This image wase made using available light, a high ISO and utilizing the resultant grain/noise as an intentional element of the final image.

So explore the possibilities of available light and don't be afraid to use those higher ISOs.You might just get that wonderful shot that otherwise might have been missed!

You can learn more from David in his workshop 
Dramatic Portraits
March 7-13, 2010

Visit his web site www.davidrobin.com to see what he's up to.