Portrait Studio

Last night the photography class was held in a portrait studio at Algonquin College. I was really nervous about it to begin with for multiple reasons.
1) I have never worked with studio lighting before,
2) I am not the greatest at directing people in terms of positions and feelings to express, etc,
3) There was the possibility I was going to have to model for the other students (eek),
and 4) I have never really taken pictures of people in non-candid. non-tourist scenarios before.

It turned out to be a really good experience and actually quite enjoyable. I didn't end up having to model for anyone as there were students there that seemed to enjoy being in the spotlight. The lighting situations were fun and made me use my camera settings in ways I never have before to compensate for the low or high lighting. I got to use a hot-shoe to connect to the professional flash setup which was neat as I have never used a hot-shoe or the flashes before. I enjoyed moving the lights around and eventually became more comfortable with doing so and with directing the model, though I never really did that too much as there were so many other people directing it wasn't entirely necessary for me to do it (kind of a shame really).

The only thing was that there were just too many people. It was hard to get the shot you wanted and whenever you did, someone would come up and mimic whatever it was that you just did - so that was frustrating.

A while ago I came up with this ingenious idea of making my own background setup out of PVC piping and some bed sheets and have had the love of this idea rekindled since last night. The idea would be especially appropriate since I now have a second assignment were I have to take 7 portrait shots of the same person under different lighting situations, with different outfits (to get the colour right on them as well as the person) and different places. I am really looking forward to this assignment as it is something I have never done before and will actually make me think and be creative. The first assignment was things I do on a regular basis with my photography and therefore no real effort was involved other than taking the pictures and making myself select a certain number of them. This one is going to be tricky though and will make me think outside the box and get out of my comfort zone and all those other things people say. :)

Now I just need to find myself a model...any volunteers??