Thursday, March 10, 2011

GPP 2011 First Workshop




It is the time of the year again, when the migratory birds start to leave the lagoons in Dubai and photographers and photo enthusiasts from all directions fly the other way to land here.

I was lucky (and early) enough to book the workshop with Gregory Heisler. He is a New York based serious big shot. That means while being a very soft spoken person with a lovely dry humor, he is deadly focused once the shooting begins. He is also a titan of his trade. And there is practically no big shot in the US that he hasn't shot in his more than 30 years of experience. You name them they are there. A small glimpse is here.   

In the doing phase of the workshop we had to come up with our own assignment. In my group we settled for a winner of the Dubai Chess Open. My take on it is above. It is lit from left with a Beauty Dish as this is where the sun is coming from. It is not entirely natural, but it looks at least more logical  than having the main light from the opposite direction of the sun. The Filler from right is a large soft box.  Camera was set to 1/200 and f8. Power on the Profoto Strobes was -2 with usual ratio of fill light being half of the main. Post processing in my usual style.


Same settings as above. No post processing.



Here the main light is a bare bulb coming from left.  I was shooting directly from below the soft box. The ambient is taken out with a Singh Ray variable ND filter, to get the dramatic lighting.

Seeing Gregory was a change of experience. Working with the big lights is also sometimes fun.
The GPP workshops in Dubai are highly recommended.


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