My plan was to teach the basics of portrait lighting. Instead, the lesson was how to deal with stress when things aren’t working exactly as you expect.
Portland editorial and wedding photographer Craig Mitchelldyer put on a workshop at The Oregonian newspaper on Thursday called “Taking your photo business to the next level.” I was honored that he asked me to fly out and lead the lighting portion.
The all day event was absolutely free to attend because Craig had sponsorships from Photoshelter, Canon, and Pro Photo Supply. White House Custom Color also made some gorgeous 16X24 mounted prints of the presenters’ work for the walls.
The place was standing room only as 180 people showed up.
In the morning, I participated in a business panel discussion with Craig, documentary photographer Robbie McClaran, Oregonian photo editor Mike Davis, Photoshelter co-founder Grover Sanschagrin, and Olympian staff photographer Tony Overman.
Someone pointed out that I was the only one on the panel who had hair on his head.
Grover also had a presentation about photographers’ websites and Thomas Boyd did a show about creativity.
In the afternoon, it was my turn to step up to the plate. After spending about 90 minutes showing my photos and telling stories, I set up for the live lighting demo. Portland band Intervision was gracious enough to be my guinea pig.
These guys are as nice as their music is awesome. If you’re a fan of Steely Dan, you should definitely check them out.
When it was time to actually make pictures, Murphy’s Law kicked into full gear and the SB-900’s would not fire via infrared. I had nearly 200 people – mostly pro photographers – breathing down my neck as I tried to figure out why the gear wasn’t working as it should.
But I wanted this to be a real-world lesson and that’s exactly what it was. Sometimes thing don’t always go perfectly – a shock, I know! The lesson was not to panic and always have a backup or two. I eventually switched to my Pocket Wizards and they worked great.
The only difference from a real shoot is that I normally work that all out before the band gets there so they don’t have any idea that anything went wrong.
Once I was up and running, I started with images of the guys in the conference room to get warmed up.
(Nikon D700, 24-70, ISO 400, 1/250, f/5.6. One softbox on each side w/SB-900’s and one bare SB-900 on the ground behind them with a red gel.)
Then I took them outside and made a couple of pictures in the park area near the paper.
(Nikon D700, 24-70, ISO 400, 1/125, f/5.6. One softbox high in front with an SB-900 and one bare SB-900 on the ground behind them with a red gel.)
(Nikon D700, 24-70, ISO 400, 1/125, f/5.6. One softbox high in front with an SB-900 and one bare SB-900 on the ground behind them with a red gel.)
Thanks to Tony Overman for taking the behind-the-scenes pic of me using Craig as a human swiveling light stand. I got to play with the new Creative Light products and the stuff is pretty cool.
The band had to get to their gig that evening, so we only shot outside for a short period of time. I would have liked to get a little more complex with the lighting by throwing some SB-900’s on the trees, but I think this worked out pretty well.
Huge thanks to all of the great folks who came out to the workshop. You’ve really got a great photo community happening out there. Feel free to say hi on Facebook.
I hung out with some of the other shooters in the evening. We went to see Intervision play live and then I got a tour of some of the local scenery.
By all measurements, the workshop was a big success. Mitchelldyer is a force of nature and I have a feeling he’ll be doing more of these. But I think next time I’ll call my workshop, “Grace under pressure: How to handle technical problems with 180 photographers watching.”