Portraits and Lighting

Learning Guide 6

Jason Oswald

Published in

Introduction to Photography and Lightroom

3 min readNov 29, 2016

Work done by David Hobby, The Strobist from On Assignment: Caleb Jones

Learning how to light is incremental, creative and fun. There is almost no math involved, nor any difficult technical know-how. In fact, good lighting is less like math and more like cooking.
–David Hobby

David Hobby, aka “The Strobist” is well-know in the photographic community. His training was as a photo-journalist and his lighting style– no widely referred to as Strobist– reflects the pressures of having to set up shoots very quickly with minimal gear.

He is a master at using small, portable lights that are inexpensive (relatively) along with cheap, and often improvised lighting modifiers.

Skills and Concepts

The use of flash and natural light as tools
The use of light modifiers
Light is a design element
Light is additive

Lecture Topics

The properties of light
Our lighting equipment

Requirements

Summary of key readings and five portraits (19)

Three portrait plans, along with any changes you made and why (21)

Three portraits (60)

There are no enrichment activities for this learning guide

Key Readings:

Photographing People part 1, part 2, part 3 and Equipment Overview

additionally, watch 5 of the portraits from this video. Probably the best way is to just randomly skip to a part of the video, backtrack to the beginning of that portrait’s part, and then watch the whole portion. Please don’t be lazy (e.g., just do the first five).

Watch 5 of these 50 portraits from Gregory Heisler

Portraits

Overview

You will be working in groups of three or four and rotating the responsibilities of photographer, subject, and assistant. You are to plan and execute three portraits using consciously designed lighting.

Rotations

Assign each person in your group a letter. Each column represents a distinct shoot where there is a photographer, a subject, and one or two assistants. Each photographer is responsible for designing and executing three portraits of the same, singular subject.

Planning

While planning your portraits, you’ll need to think about a variety of things. Utilize the theory section as a research tool. Your primary goal is to relay some aspect of your subject’s character to your viewer. If you don’t know your subject well, perhaps take a moment to ask them about their interests and hobbies.

You will need to consider the following for each portrait:

location
lighting (sources, direction, intensity, size, color)
poses
clothing
props
post-processing

Further, you will also need to identify at least one reference portrait you are trying to recreate (emulate). Make note of this portrait, and its reference portrait, in your plan, and be sure to include the portrait itself in what you turn in.