Lighting Class

Happy Sunday Everyone!!  I hope you enjoyed the past week. Today I wanted to talk a little about lighting. In the past I was always afraid to use studio lighting, I found it intimidating and difficult to do. Over the years I have tried and tried to figure out studio lighting. I just never seemed to be able to get it right. So when I saw what my next class was that was coming up I was really excited. The class was PH136 Lighting class.  As I went through the course outline, I looked to see who my instructor was going to be. I found out that my instructor was Reuben Njaa, so I did what we all do nowadays, I “Googled” him. What I found was someone who was amazing with painting with light, and he appeared to have so much knowledge and this really excited me. I looked over his personal website http://www.reubennjaaphotography.com/ for hours, looking at all of his amazing work.

When shooting portraits remember that there are many different types of lighting. Each will give you a different result.(Hurter)

Split Lighting – is used when the key light illuminates only half the face. It is an ideal slimming light. It can be used to narrow a wide face or nose.(Hurter)

Rembrandt Lighting - is characterized by a small, triangular highlight on the shadowed cheek of the subject. This type of lighting is dramatic.(Hurter)

Butterfly Lighting - lighting pattern that produces a symmetrical, butterfly-like shadow beneath the subject’s nose. It tends to emphasize high cheekbones and good skin.(Hurter)

Rim Lighting - is used when the subject’s head is turned 90 degrees from the camera lens. It is a dramatic style of lighting used to accent elegant features. It is used less frequently now than in the past, but it still produces a stylish portrait.(Hurter)

Loop Lighting - This is one of the more commonly used lighting setups and is ideal for people with average, oval-shaped faces.  (Hurter)

One of the things that I remember that stands out the most is one of my first interactions with him. Our first assignment we had to post a Bio, and as the comments flowed, I had told him” I want to be just as good as you are!” His reply not only surprised me but has to this day inspired me. Reuben Njaa said this” Don’t try to be as good as me, try to be better than me”.  I keep that in the back of my head each and every time I shoot.  Thanks Reuben you have been a true inspiration.

Below are a few of the photographs I took during PH136 with Reuben Njaa

 Photos by Wayne Salat

  Photos by Wayne Salat

  Photos by Wayne Salat

  Photos by Wayne Salat

 Photos by Wayne Salat

Enjoy Your Sunday and Photograph Something Everyday!

Sunday Ambassador~ Wayne

Hurter, Bill. "The Five Basic Portrait-Lighting Setups." Sekonic Control Light. Sekonic, n.d. Web. 23 Jul 2013. <http://www.sekonic.com/whatisyourspecialty/photographer/articles/the-five-basic-portrait-lighting-setups.asp&xgt;.

Are we going fast or slow in this course?

Hello everyone and welcome to another Terrific Tuesday!

If you started classes at about the same time I started blogging (is that a word!) then you should be in your week five or so, looking ahead toward the end of the class… so you can start all over again with the next on most of the time the next day!  People have asked me before “how do you do it?” after all I am working full time, working part time and going to school full time.  My answer is simple: stamina and perseverance!

When I first started with the classes it seemed that everything was going at such a fast pace that I felt that I had to run from day one just to catch up with the fear of being left behind.  After three years, now it feels like time has stopped moving as fast and that everything is where it is supposed to be.

By this time you might be saying: “who is he kidding, I can barely keep up with the course!”

Others might be saying: “this guy is crazy, we will never be able to perceive that classes are that slow!”

I am here to tell you that someday you will look back at this blog and say that I was right!  If you are wondering how I got where I am today, I will tell you that there are three things that helped me through the hard times in this race to the finish line, also known as graduation with a diploma.

The first one is time management, be sure that you keep track of everything that is going on in the classes you are taking and plan ahead accordingly.  If Monday is day one of the week and you have a shooting assignment due on Saturday, don’t wait until that day to start shooting, more often than not there will be some problems that need to be dealt with before you get to the shooting.  If you have a paper for another class due on the same day, start your research as soon as possible.  Also, remember that the last week is a short one and some classes have final projects that need to be turned in before the course ends.  Once you know what is going on during that week, plan your time to get everything done taking into consideration everything you learned in your previous classes.

My second area that helped me during my studies is patience.  Don’t laugh, you need to have patience to deal with everything that is thrown your way and perseverance to get everything done.

The last thing is developing a strong will and foresight of everything you are going to do in the future, that way you can plan ahead and use your time management skills accordingly.  Some classes are required in order to tackle the next ones, go into the library and see all the courses that are required for your degree.  You can actually open the information for each one of them and see the topical outlines for each class, so you can prepare yourself for what is coming your way!

That is all I got, do you agree?  Do you have any secrets that assist you throughout the studies that you might want to share with others?  Go ahead and write them down and share them here.

Until later then, I leave you with some humor to keep your spirits and your tickle bone tuned!

Have a great Tuesday!

Tuesday Ambassador.