Saturday, September 27, 2008

197/365 DIY portrait lighting

My final class meeting at the IMA on Saturday morning focused on shutter speed and lighting.

The teacher hired one of his other students, who is a dancer, to come in for an hour and be our model. We started with her in the classroom, focusing on simple portrait lighting that can be replicated at home with basic tools (I love DIY versions). She's lit in the portrait above by a standard desk lamp.

She came outside with us for the second half of the hour so we could work with using shutter speeds to alternately blur and freeze motion. I felt for her -- we had her jumping up and down, running back and forth, spinning around in circles... she was out of breath by the end (but seemed to be having fun).

My final evaluation of the class is positive. No, it wasn't as advanced as I had hoped, but it did fill in some gaps that other classes had glazed over or skipped. And I really liked the teacher, so I'll know to be on the lookout for more of his offerings.

Camera: Canon 40D, lit with a single halogen bulb in a desk lamp, 1/40s, f/5.6 at ISO 1250.

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