Seeing the Light

I attended a course in photographic lighting techniques yesterday, and had a wonderful time. For me it was more of a review than anything else, as I had already attended the same course (at a different location) back in the spring/summer of this year. Because of this, I took a little more time to take photos while the hands-on portion of the class was going on. It was that, or just sit around and wait for the next lecture segment :)

Although the class was on how to best make use of on-camera flash, the first room we shot in had this terrific quality of light that I have not seen before. While the rest of the class was taking turns photographing a model by the window, I was taking pictures of the rest of the class photographing a model by the window. As I did not wish to intrude or impact their photos, I took all the pictures making use of available light only. It wasn't until I looked at the photos after the fact that I noticed how great the lighting was.

One of my favorite photos was of Neil (the instructor) watching over the shoulder of one of the students



I think the amazing quality of light came from the fact that the sky was mostly overcast (think "diffused, soft light") and that there was a bank of large windows letting this light stream in and bounce around on the brick walls and off the hardwood floor. We don't often stop to think about this, but all of that bouncing off those warm-toned surfaces definitely introduces a warm color-cast to the light. So what I had was warm, soft light bathing my subjects.

The rest of the pictures can be found here.

-- BK