This past week, I flew down to Tampa for a workshop given by Rick Sammon as part of Dave Cross Workshops. Rick is a Canon Explorer of Light and a fabulous teacher. The focus of the workshop was lighting, but I was hoping to experience Rick’s approach and vision. I’m pretty comfortable with lighting, but every photographer sees differently, uses the light a little differently, composes a scene differently.
We shot in Dave’s studio as well as in a few outdoor settings. Many times, Rick would ask what do we want to shoot? Who has an idea? We’d use ambient light or bring in some light as needed, or we’d try both.
We played with some backlighting and more than once with gels. I love gels – they can add so much drama to a shot. I can remember one shoot where I had used gels for a set of photos then removed them. The lighting looked so plain then! Sort of like eating a spicy dish followed by a piece of white bread.
Our models, Ashley the first day and Danielle the second, are both dancers and were great at taking directions. Dancers make wonderful models as they are very aware of their bodies and they are strong. Our models dance at the studio where Ricky Jaime, who was on So You Think You Can Dance recently danced and taught.
We took Ashley to a park on Tuesday after pretty much a morning of rain. It was cool and her light dress wasn’t very good at keeping her warm, but she didn’t let that interfere with her job. We were all impressed.
Rick thought Dave’s red car would make a great backdrop, so we moved the other vehicles and shot Ashley in or just outside the car. This picture came to my mind, so I had her stand by the car using my phone as a prop.
We moved to a roadway that curves into a beautiful archway of trees. The cloudy skies were actually good for us, giving us nice even light which we sometimes aided with a pop from a strobe. While we were getting ready, Ashley covered up a bit to warm up. When she looked up toward the sky, the light worked wonderfully with her face. I like this shot better than any of the more staged shots I took there.
On Wednesday, we shot on location first, driving into Ybor City. This was once the largest producer of Cigars in the world, shipping up tobacco from Cuba, with many Cuban and Italian immigrants. I had spent a little time there on Sunday looking around. There’s a nice museum I enjoyed.
There’s an alley filled with graffiti where we did a lot of our shots, but we noticed this brick wall and some cool shadows. We had tons of sunshine, much different from the day before. I liked the way the red glow from the bricks worked with Danielle’s skin tone.
In the shade of the alley, we could use the strobes to create whatever light we wanted. I love watching other photographers work. If you’ve ever done a brainstorming session, it works like that for me. I’ll see what one person does, and I’ll suddenly have an idea that plays off of that, sometimes in a very different way. I wanted this shot to look like Danielle is standing in a street light. Looking at it later, the light and the textures suggested a black and white treatment to me.
But much of the graffiti was very colorful, especially this section with lots of reds and yellows.
Back in the studio, we made use of Dave’s seemless background. Rick had a homemade grid effect, and it was time to use some gels again. It was rather amazing how quickly we found the right settings to produce a fairly dramatic photo. Again, working with a dancer is great. She would find a pose like this and about all we’d have to do is have her move an arm this way or that.
Rick then suggested doing a silhouette. We played with the size of the lighted area and with Danielle’s arms.
It was all over too quickly, and it would be back to Minnesota with me. It’s been an unusually warm winter here, but it’s certainly not Florida! I had fun wandering around a bit before the workshop and seeing my niece Claire and her husband who graciously offered to put me up while I was in Tampa. And, RC Concepcion gave me a tour of Kelby Media’s building down the street a few doors from Dave’s studio. Then on Wednesday after the workshop, I stopped by again to watch the live webcast of The Grid Live with Scott Kelby, his wife Kalebra, and RC.
All in all, a fun experience!
