Lighting Workshop

Arizona Highways workshop with Paul Markow. Lots of valuable new information and techniques for me. Credit for the shots goes to the instructor, who assembled each lighting setup and even gave us camera settings for ISO, color balance, aperture and shutter speed. He also showed us how to pose the models; we essentially just pressed the shutter button. All shots hand-held with 70-200mm lens; I've processed each image in Lightroom using techniques from the class.

The first day was all ambient light. For this one, the model was positioned in a north-facing garage doorway, flanked on both sides by huge V-shaped white cardboard panels. We were shooting from inside the studio against the natural light outside, which obviously washed out the background for a very high-key effect.
Same garage door, model facing out and us shooting in, this time with black panels on the side and background paper behind her.
Outdoors (middle of the parking lot), backlit with direct sun, white cardboard reflector to light the model's face.
Parking lot sunlight again, this time side-lit with a translucent diffusion panel between the sun and the model.
Direct light, just a few minutes before sunset (golden time). Camera in continuous shooting mode as model was twirling her hair.
After sunset, shooting toward the west, ISO cranked up to 6400 with lots of post-processing noise reduction. Yes, the model probably was as cold as she looked (this is in November!).
After sunset, completely dark, illumination from the instructor's car headlights, ISO 6400 again. Everyone cold by this time!
The second day was all artificial light with high-end studio strobes. This is "Rembrandt" lighting (main, fill, hair and back light); "boring" according to the instructor, but bread-and-butter for anyone doing executive portraits or similar work.
"My bad" for not getting a better pose, but the lighting is from a "beauty light" above and fill below, with both red background paper and red gel over the background light for impact.
For this shot, the whole studio was turned into a giant soft-box with four strobes.
Outside in bright sunlight, with a single soft-box strobe over-riding the natural background light. One problem: to get this effect meant closing down to f/22, so the ugly background is still in focus enough to be distracting. I also didn't time the model's twirling very well, even with continuous shooting.
"ESPN" lighting -- dramatic for male portraits but unflattering to women. Two slim soft-boxes from back sides, shielded from camera with black panels; fill light from in front. I was actually the "model" in this setup for the rest of the class, "thanks" or "no thanks" to missing hair on the sides. A fellow student was kind enough to sit in for me while I took this shot -- in real life he's an MD pediatric trauma surgeon!