Take a look behind the scenes of the weekend strobist workshop organized by the guys at Japanorama
David Hobby, known more commonly as the Strobist, has lit a fire under the butts of the photo society with his blog about simple off-camera lighting. Nowadays, love it or hate it, the strobist movement has forever changed the landscape of photography and seriously helped out the sales of Pocket Wizards and 2nd hand shop owners with piles of old SB-26’s and 28’s.
Seriously though, the strobist phenomenon has gotten to the stage where off-camera lighting is something that needs to be in the skill set of every pro and aspiring amateur, and one of the best places to get hands on practice and good advice is the weekend strobist workshop by Japanorama.
This is a (generally) weekly fixture where we organise a location and model (depending on the level of shooters) and just go out to have a bunch of fun shooting, learning, and occasionally getting kicked out of locations.
This time around our participants were just starting out getting their heads around flash, which is a good excuse to make them shoot each other, and encourage the learning process by bouncing ideas back and forth.
Lighting isn’t hard - but it can be confusing if you go into it with misconceptions about how it works. We spent the first part of the day going through gear and gear choices, and moved onto really nailing the correlations between flash exposure, shutter speed, aperture and ISO. I shot a couple of demos, walking the kids through my approach to putting up a one light portrait set-up, and let them go for it. By the end of the class and several location changes they were nailing it without much guidance from myself or Alfie. Best of all, they were kind enough to write some testimonials for us when we asked for feedback:
“Just got back from a great 5 hours with Alfie and Irwin. Having read a bit about flash over the last couple of months I was not sure how much I could learn to be honest, but this lesson taught me A LOT! From control of ambient light, strobe positioning, use of equipment (moving from ETTL to manual mode) to more conceptual issues such as the correlation between aperture and flash strength. The lesson was fun and extremely informative. These guys know their stuff. They also know some great locations in Tokyo. I’ll be back for more. Thanks guys.”
Alan by Charlie
Alan:
“I’ve been using a digital SLR for more than 5 years without really taking it that seriously. Adjusting the aperture was generally the extent of my “creativity”. In the last month I have attempted to step up my game and the more I learn the more I realise I didnt know very much at all. Yesterday was an intense version of one of those days, with the focus being on “flash photography” but I learnt plenty of other things as well. Helps that Aflie and Irwin were by my side, they not only clearly know their stuff but can equally communicate it very clearly. Thanks guys and look forward to the next session.”
Charlie by Alan
“I was a complete beginner when it came to flash but the team of Alfie and Irwin had me up to speed in no time at all on the basic concepts of flash photography as well as what all those fancy dials and numbers on my SB-900 Speedlight mean. We spent a few hours making some basic images outside and then moved on to slightly more advanced points using an indoor location and trying to mix natural light with flash and shaping light. Still a long way to go before I would dare call myself proficient, but spending a few hours with the Japanorama team has definitely got me off to a good start.”
Alfie by Justin
These guys are well on their way to strobe proficiency and although there is still a lot to learn (apparent light size, distance/intensity ratios, controlling specular highlights, gelling, multi light setups etc.), they have managed to get over the most important hurdle to successful lighting – which is to just get out there and do it.
A demo on restricted light - Irwin Wong
Keep checking our new forum for details and dates of the next upcoming workshops and remember that we also do individual and non-strobist lessons too! Go to the contact page to get in touch for details. Also, bear in mind there is an upper limit of 6 students to the workshop, so you get in touch quick to secure your spot.
Looking forward to more shooting in the weeks to come.
