The Santa Fe Photo Workshops
www.sfworkshop.com

PORTRAITS UNPLUGGED
One-week Workshop
February 10 to 16, 2008

The beauty of available light is that it's everywhere. Any time of day and any situation can be turned into a great opportunity for environmental portraits. This workshop will help develop your ability to "see" the quality of light and apply it to "real" people. We don't scout locations, we scout light and make the location work. We put our people in the light, critically aware of the direction as well as the quality, to create our interpretive portraits. The most important part of our picture is not the subject, but how we choose to define our subject. The emphasis is on utilizing all our tools: light, tonality, composition and color, to get our ideas stated visually.

The workshop will consist of demonstrations, field trips, working with models and personal projects. We will work with all kinds of existing light: hard, soft, bounced, reflected, diffused, etc. The only tools we use are reflectors. Portable flashes are optional but discouraged. We will work in both black and white and color and in any format. We will work on capturing the essence of the people by the use of posing and props. We will learn how to work with a variety of personalities and how to draw out the appropriate expressions. Santa Fe is the perfect location for this class because of the quality of light and the array of colorful characters.

This is not a tech course. It is for photographers who want to strengthen their people skills as well as their appreciation of light. A working knowledge of photography is required for this course.

INTRO TO PHOTOGRAPHIC LIGHTING
One-week Workshop
July 27 to August 2, 2008

In any photograph, lighting sets the mood, texture and description of the subject whether it’s a portrait, still life or landscape. It’s so important to understand how to define your story and concept by choosing the appropriate method of lighting. This intensive hands-on workshop covers the essential aspects of light with both studio strobes and natural light and gives you the tools to succeed. We cover in depth the Big Three: Direction, Quality and Depth, and how to use each effectively and appropriately. Participants will begin with learning all the gear; how strobes work, modifying the light with umbrellas, soft boxes, grids and bounced light, and multiple light setups. In the studio, the participants will photograph models as well as still life set-ups with the tremendous amount of lighting gear that the Workshop has available. We will also go on location, finding and working with natural light then using reflectors and diffusers to modify it.

Topics included are lighting patterns, lighting ratios, quality of light, composition, using artificial light to look natural, building a lighting set for effect, metering techniques, using hair and background lights, setting the mood with high and low key lighting,  color temperature and gels, and balancing strobe and ambient light. Bobbi is terrific at de-mystifying all this technical information so that the participant can understand the concepts and put them to use immediately. The emphasis is always about matching the light with the concept of the photo. By the end of the week, the participants will have lost their fear of lighting and will develop a strong foundation for developing their lighting techniques for their own personal style.

This workshop is designed for those photographers with little or no lighting experience and for those who are interesting in developing their lighting skills to create more effective photographs. No portfolio is necessary, but a working knowledge of their camera and basic digital skills are required.