I'm going to jump through the rest of my weekend quickly, and concentrate on the main bit, the Peter Coulsen workshop.
If you read my last post, you will have now had a look at Peters work, and have some idea of the level at which he operates.
I've been a big fan of Peters for a while now, but it wasn't until I caught up with Dan Cripps for lunch a few months ago that I had seriously considered going for a workshop... basically I was too intimidated.
So I signed up and headed over to Peters Advanced Studio Lighting workshop. Walking through the door of his amazing studio was jaw dropping... talk about photographer heaven. And Peter himself made sure that straight away, everyone there felt at ease. He projects that unique mix of confidence and humility that you find in people that really know their s#!t, and are good enough that they don't need to say it.
Peter kicked off with some "simple" high key lighting set ups. I say simple, because his set up was simple, but had differences to what everyone else in the room was used to, that made pretty much very photographer have a "D'oh!" moment... he worked through each set up so fluidly, taking stuff that we all felt we knew a bit about, and adding those little elements that only a wealth of experience can bring... simple touches, quick techniques to adapt the lighting for different purposes,
There is way too much to cover in one blog post, but what I do want to say is that just that day, was worth every cent that airfares (I didn't get cheap flights as I booked so close to the day), travel expenses etc. cost me. I could have bought a whole new fuji XT-1 for what the weekend cost all up, but what I got was so much more valuable. Knowledge, shared from one of Australia's absolute masters of the craft, an amazing photographer, teacher and artist. I came away feeling overloaded with techniques, tips and inspiration.
This day was all about learning, and the setups were all Peters, and the incredible models did an amazing job. Each of us was given an opportunity to shoot the setups (some shot more than others ;-P ). for me, I grabbed one or two snaps for reference, but when a master has set the lights, and you have the amazingly talented models posing that Peter had there, I really cannot take any credit for the shots, I pretty much just pointed my camera and pressed the button (examples below)
So if you are a photographer, go check out Peters website, his Facebook page, and if you like his stuff, next time you have money burning a hole in your pocket, sign up for a workshop and put off that new lens for another day!
two different looks from basically the one set up... I had to grab a couple of reference images!
Peter set about putting together an amazing multiple light setup... not to show us how to do this particular setup, more to demonstrate how to reverse engineer lighting, but also to emphasise the importance of taking it slow, and being careful and precise if you really want to do a good job.
Peters lighting, my press of the button.. screen shot of my reference image
Here Peter shoed how to do awesome things with one light.. his lighting...again, all I can take credit for on this reference shot is pressing the button/
So I left on Sunday afternoon, and had already organised models so I could get into the studio and try a few things to push my work a bit further, I'll share some of that work in a later blog.