Lighting Seminar

[JoeDif]

I attended the Joe McNally lighting seminar yesterday in Philadelphia. It was quite informative. I did learn that you can make great portraits with only:

7 strobes
gels
Honl grid
tri grip silver reflector
soft box
artificial sweat

Seriously, he started at a basic 1 strobe set up and built on that until he had the above set up. He also included a segment on using larger studio lighting.

If you are serious about learning how to use strobes and he will be doing the seminar in your area I highly recommend it.

Now....how do I convince DW that I must have that set up above

 

[YesDear]

I really would love to attend a Joe McNally seminar. I have a good friend that has and says he is real down to earth just good guy!

I am properly jealous.

 

[mrcricket]

I've been watching tutorials by Joe online. I've leaned a lot already. Joe knows his stuff. I would think his in-person classes would be a not-to-be-missed opportunity. I'll have watch his schedule.

 

[JoeDif]

What I thought was really interesting was he started off saying that he wouldn't know a lighting ratio if it crawled up his pants leg and bit him on the butt. When he shoots a particular scene, he has a general idea mapped out of what he plans on doing with the strobes but has no idea if it will actually work until he actually starts shooting. At that point it's lots of experimentation. (well that and 35 years of experience helps too)

 

[Chikabowa]

What I thought was really interesting was he started off saying that he wouldn't know a lighting ratio if it crawled up his pants leg and bit him on the butt. When he shoots a particular scene, he has a general idea mapped out of what he plans on doing with the strobes but has no idea if it will actually work until he actually starts shooting. At that point it's lots of experimentation. (well that and 35 years of experience helps too)

That makes me chuckle because I'm the same way. I never learned the "correct" way of lighting ratios and couldn't get that technical with me lighting talk. But I can eyeball a situation pretty accurately! LOL Makes me feel better that I'm not the only one.

I started teaching myself lighting based on a one-light set up as well. Once the entire concept clicks... it actually is SUPER easy from then on out. It's just getting everything to click in your brain - you almost have to think a bit differently. I now enjoy incorporating a lot of different ways of lighting - but thinking with the one light set up really gets your brain working in a way, that I think, is the best in terms of learning.

 

[disneyboy2003]

I attended the Joe McNally lighting seminar yesterday in Philadelphia. It was quite informative. I did learn that you can make great portraits with only:

7 strobes
gels
Honl grid
tri grip silver reflector
soft box
artificial sweat

Joe really is quite amazing with all he can do with strobes.

Did you hear about the photo shoot he did of the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT)? It's the size of a 22 story building. I'm not sure if he was joking or not, but he says that he used 347 strobes! (I think he was joking, but looks like he did use a lot of lighting equipment)

 

[JoeDif]

Whatever he used it is an impressive image

 

[disneyboy2003]

Here's another photo that Joe McNally took of an experimental aircraft. This one *only* took 8 speedlights.

Here's another photo of Joe, playing with 6 (or 7?) speedlights:

 

[MarkBarbieri]

He's got a couple of good books. They aren't good as instructional books. They're much better as inspirational books. The two I know of are The Moment It Clicks and The Hot Shoe Diaries. He also has several training videos on Kelby Training and on DVD (A Hands-On Guide to Creative Lighting). I've hosted a couple of photo video nights showing these.