I recently attended Don Giannatti’s Lighting Essentials Workshop in San Diego. I am always looking for opportunities to learn more about the technical aspects of my craft. Don’s workshop sounded exactly like what I was looking for…and I seriously needed a break from LA! Don also has a project up to help photographers really master their lighting over the course of a year…you can visit his site and check out Project 52. I am planning on participating (which means I’d finally use my Flickr account…I must be the only photographer who doesn’t post anything there.) On to my review of the two day workshop and some images from the weekend!
The first day began in a studio setting. Don began by talking about the fundamentals of lighting – the characteristics of light. We each got a booklet with lots of good information about metering, ratios, light meters, inverse square law (ha! and you thought artists don’t use math), the angle of the lights, reflective surfaces, various lighting sources and modifiers, etc. There were also a few blank diagrams in case we wanted to jot notes about how we had set up lights during the demonstration.
(My friend Dave posing during our practice lighting session)
I have been to a few workshops before and my main gripe with lighting workshops I’ve attended is that the instructors lecture A LOT and then they set the lights up for you. I wanted to learn the rationale behind certain lighting situations so I could go ahead and light a scene the way I see it in my head…you know, when the instructor is not around the rest of the 363 days of the year. The first activity after Don’s talk was to use a manipulative (yup, that’s the teacher in me coming out) to help us understand and visualize the inverse square law. He had us measure out a length of rope and knot it according to various measurements of light. I had a basic understanding of inverse square law but for some reason the manipulative further confused me…I think because Don explained it really quickly. I went home (more like my friend Fauzia’s home) that night and reworked the logic of the rope again and again until I felt like I understood it better. I wanted to be able to think about the inverse square law as easily and quickly as I do when adjusting shutter speed and aperture. I remember how long it used to take me to expose an image in the very beginning stages of learning how to use my camera because I would have to work through my exposure settings and do the math (hmmm, it keeps coming up doesn’t it). Anyways, the next day I was more comfortable with the rope but I wasn’t sure I had it down. As I’ve been taught in my teacher credential classes, students understand and retain more when they can explain or teach to someone else. So at some point during the second day I had to talk out the logical steps of using the rope out loud to my team members – thankfully they were a patient bunch.
Devon
Okay more from the first day. After we all helped each other measure out our ropes (a great ice breaker) Don started demonstrating a setup in the studio that used only one light. It was a great starting point and I was listening so intently, I didn’t jot down any diagrams 🙁 Maybe I can bug my team again…but I don’t think they took notes either! He used the demonstration to visually show the things he had talked about earlier in the day. He pointed out hightlights and shadows and what to think about when you light a subject. Don then went on to build upon the one light with reflectors. He talked about how the background was being affected by the light and how we could control that as well. He then had us practice with the model to get us warmed up directing someone we had just met. 🙂 Throughout the day when someone had a question Don was really patient about stopping or slowing down to address it. This really took a lot of pressure off because the day didn’t feel so jam packed that we couldn’t stop for questions. We did a few more lighting setups and Don showed us we could quickly change or tweak a setup to get an entirely different look.
Nisa
In the afternoon, we went outside the studio and began using our off camera flash units and portable strobes. I discovered that Alien Bees has a new Vagabond Mini battery! Yeah, I know…what rock was I hiding under all this time? I have the huge VII and kept having to lug it around. Well, okay the gentlemen lugged it around for me mostly…and other times I used my teacher cart to haul my gear. Once we got outside suddenly the workshop took on super speed. We’d all discuss and setup a particular scene and then as a few people were shooting it, Don would move on to another scene. The overachiever in me got a little stressed at this point because if I stayed to shoot and practice a little, I was missing out on hearing about the next setup. If I went to the setup, I didn’t get to actually see the scene and adjust my settings so I could understand the last setup. I know I know, I said overachiever ok!
Alright…the first day came to a close and I felt okay about the workshop. I had a few concerns but I will save that until the end of this post.
The second day we met at Balboa park. Don brought donuts! 🙂 I’m still excited about that apparently. We went straight into talking about natural light and how to look for good light. We also talked about how to scrim properly, use reflectors, etc. Then Don had us break into teams…each team was supposed to work with a model based on what we had learned. Then Don would critique our images and help us to improve them. Slight problem – there were ten models who said they would come. I think at the end of the day we had 4. The first day we had 1 instead of the 3 that had confirmed. We made the best of it and took turns taking pictures of each other in different areas of the park. It was really fun working with my team because each person had a different way of viewing the scene and had a unique vision about how they wanted the final image to look. We also got to experience assisting a photographer as well as directing assistants+models. Wow, a shoot goes so much more smoothly when you have 3 assistants at your beck and call 🙂
So here are the positives and negatives:
Positivo:
*Affordable
*Organized
*Great information breakdown for beginning lighting
*Hands on
*Handbook+DVD to take home
*Donuts…jk!
*Don is patient and not at all condescending
*Don is hilarious
*You work individually and with a team
*I walked away knowing a couple more photographers that I enjoy shooting with
*After the workshop, my new friend Dave and I got a chance to shoot a fire dancer who happened to see us at Balboa park! And yes I asked for a quick fire dance lesson which Kristeen was so gracious to provide…without the fire of course. I think I may explore that a little more 🙂
Negativo:
*At times the workshop moved very fast and there were multiple things going on at the same time.
*There were times when we all would get to shoot a particular scene but it seemed like some people were a bit pushier than others. I can be quite aggressive…I just don’t feel like I should have to be at a workshop where I’ve paid the same as everyone else. There were definitely a number of times a couple of people would jump in front of me to shoot instead or would take quite a lot longer to shoot than everyone else. And honestly, there were a couple of people that would shoot twice before you could get in. Annoying and unfair.
*So as I mentioned earlier, I wasn’t looking for a workshop where the instructor tells you formulas. The description for this workshop stated that it wasn’t that kind of workshop. But there were numerous times that I found that rather than having us figure out the ambient exposure and work our way to over/underexposing, then figuring out our light…Don would just tell us “Hey this is f/8 at shutter speed 1/125.” It happened enough times that I noticed. The problem with that is that you feel confident and great when you are shooting what the instructor has told you…but when you are on your own, you don’t know how the heck he got there. I am the kid that always asks (note the present tense) why? Why this? What that? Why not? You get it. So for me, I usually have to know why we are doing a particular task a particular way in order for me to understand it.
*Don has a lot of experiences to share which can be good when it is industry related (ie we discussed intellectual property rights). I’m all down for a few quick stories here and there. But there times when I felt like we were just chatting around and listening to him tell a story about when…another thing that was advertised differently than it went down.
So, that is my experience…take it for you want. At the end of the day, I do recommend the workshop as it was better than the last one I had attended. I did leave excited about trying out what I had learned and I’m sure it will make my images all the better. In the meantime, I am going to get started on some of the Project52 assignments. The nerdy overachiever in me can’t seem to start it unless I do the first lesson and then progress – although the website tells you that it is okay to jump in at any point.
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