Myerson Photo Blog

At the risk of becoming a Strobist metablog, I’m going to post one more blog post here about Strobist. I had every intention of playing along with the Lighting 101 segments when David ran those. They seemed like (and were. And still are, I suppose) a great way to practice lighting techniques and force myself to shoot assignments not for clients or stock.

So this time around – Lighting 102 – I really am going to play along at home. I’ve already missed the first several assignments, but it’s not too late to jump onboard. The current assignment, due in early March, is a single light setup. The whole point of the assignment, however, is to press that one light into extra service. Through creative use of reflectors (traditional reflectors, as well as anything else that might bounce and modify the light), one light can serve as key light, fill light, rim light, and who knows what else.

To help us along the way, the lesson is set up to mimic a commercial assignment. That is, there’s a topic and a publication. Of course, we’re free to select the topic from a list of three general options (”Financial Planning”, “Going Green”, “Physical Fitness”), and we’re free as well to select the publication. Thinking of the shoot in terms of an end use can help clarify the context and point you in the right direction for previsualization. Shooting a treadmill for Wired might entail a different set up than shooting the same subject for Men’s Health or Vanity Fair or Guns and Ammo.

In the interest of “double duty”, I may try to develop a shot concept that would serve as my entry for the Tucson Photo Meetup monthly challenge for March as well. The theme there is “macro/closeup”. There are lots of ways the two assignments could be suitably combined.

I’ll post my results here on my blog, as well as in the Strobist Flickr group.