Kiama-Shellharbour Camera Club

At last week’s KSCC meeting, we had local professional photographer Jason Cole from Jason Cole Photography demonstrate studio portraiture techniques for us. His assistant Paul Pennell came along, and he brought local model Sally Snell as his subject.

For his main camera, Jason shoots with a Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II. This is a 17.6 megapixel camera – most magazines nowadays demand at least 10 megapixel files, as much to weed out the less-serious ‘dabblers’ as for practical quality reasons. He uses an Apple PowerBook on-site for file backup and image reviewing, and has a Quad G5 PowerMac desktop (hooked up to a massive 30-inch monitor!) for the heavy Photoshop work.

Jason brought his studio lighting setup and backdrop kit, as well as his Broncolor Mobil Studio lighting kit. Both the studio lighting and the Broncolor Mobil use the same softboxes (measuring 120cm by 80cm), giving beautiful diffuse lighting that avoids the harsh shadow outlines created by on-camera flash. One of the big differences between the two kits is in the recycle time – the studio kit can fire every 2 seconds on maximum output, whereas the battery-powered Broncolor takes about 10 seconds to recharge.

Click on any photograph on this page to view a larger version. Most photographs are arranged into ‘sets’ – you can click on the right half of the photo to see the next one in the set, or click on the left half of the photo to see the previous one.

The two photographs below illustrate the difference between direct flash and a softbox lighting system.

The first shot was taken with a flash mounted on top of the camera. Note how the direct light bleaches out Sally’s skin tones and produces a two-dimensional image with sharp-edged shadows.

The second shot was taken with the two softboxes, one on Sally’s left to light her from the front and side, and the other behind and to her right to provide the rim-lighting along her right arm. Note how the image looks more three-dimensional, showing the contours of her body. Her skin tone also looks very natural.

Even though his lighting system is colour-balanced to provide light with a daylight colour temperature, Jason likes to shoot with his camera set to Cloudy white balance for a slight warm shift. This makes the model’s skin look a little more tanned and healthy, and gives a pleasing overall look. Little things like this help to get the best images possible straight from the camera, minimising the time needed to make corrections in Photoshop later. The two photographs below demonstrate this.

Another little thing to be aware of is how close your model gets to your lights. Without realising it, your model may edge closer to the lights as she changes poses and moves around on the set. This can cause the exposure readings to change, and if you’re not careful you’ll get blown-out areas of skin (if she gets too close to the light) or underexposure (if she gets too far away). In the second picture below, you can see Sally’s left arm is just starting to get a bit ‘hot’ compared to the rest of her skin.

Jason showed us a lighting technique he uses to do some of his studio art photography. He sets up one softbox to the side of the model, bringing her forward almost to the front edge of the softbox so the light is shining directly across her body. He then sets up a second softbox on the opposite side and behind the model to provide rim lighting. The angle of the light from the first softbox shows up every muscle and curve on the model’s body.

And now for a few more shots of Sally in various poses:

Of course, everyone likes to have their photograph taken with a model:

The Club would like to give a hearty thanks to Jason, Paul and Sally for a wonderful demonstration. We all learned a lot about studio portraiture and posing, and Paul gave us a few good laughs as well.

If you admired Paul’s work, you can see more shots of him in action here. And no, you can’t have his job.

On May 3 Jason Cole, from Jason Cole Photography, will be showing us how he works in a studio. He’ll be bringing along some professional lighting gear, so bring your camera and have a go at taking portraits under studio conditions.

Jason is a local professional photographer, and has shot for many Australian and International magazines including Fuel, FHM and Sports Illustrated. He recently spent several days shooting Tatiana Grigorieva on the Gold Coast, and several of his images appear on her site. Jason is also a popular wedding photographer.

Most of our club members know Diane Epoff. She has judged at our Print and Slide of the Year Competition, she’s been a guest speaker at our club, she has taught Photoshop classes that many of our members have attended, and she’s generally been around the Illawarra photography scene for quite a while.

Diane now has an exhibition running at the Long Gallery at the University of Wollongong, titled “Bundanon, Terra Firma – Terra Alba”. From the promotional material:

Through fieldwork at Bundanon, the cultural landscape is mapped and analysed, and relationships between perceived dual forces are explored in works which contemplate associations between: settler and country, clearing and bush, introduced species and native, home and habitat, past and present, visible and invisible, and light and shadow.

Alluding to postcolonial notions of place and emplacement, these images employ both traditional and digital photographic techniques and processes, and reveal complex and contradictory relationships through a visual discourse which is layered with Diane’s own personal experience and vision of Bundanon.

The exhibition runs from October 27 to November 11, 2005, in the Long Gallery, Faculty of Creative Arts, Building 25, University of Wollongong.

The prints in the exhibition were shown to us by Diane during her recent presentation at our club, but it’s quite impressive to see them printed full-size (some over a metre in the long dimension). The detail in the prints goes on and on, and you can spend a fair bit of time poring over them and examining them from up close and from further back.

Brother and sister Ollie and Dom Barrington from Riversdale7 Fine Art Photography have put together a great exhibition of their photography at The Old Fire Station Gallery, Terralong Street, Kiama. The exhibition is titled “From Source to Sea, the journey of just one drop”, and runs November 1 to 7, 2005.

The photographs range in style from elegant minimalism to sweeping landscapes and gushing waterfalls, always with water as an element.

If you aren’t able to make it to the gallery, you can see the images online at the Riversdale7 Gallery. Just make sure you wait for that page to load – it doesn’t look like there’s anything there at first, but it’s loading a Flash presentation if you’re patient.

Today I checked out the current exhibition at the Old Fire Station Gallery, Terralong Street, Kiama. It was “Light on Asia”, a photography exhibition by Brett Harrison.

South Coast amateur photographer Brett Harrison has lived in Japan and traveled extensively through China, Mongolia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos during his last 2.5 years abroad. His exhibition encompasses these countries, their people and the environment in which they live, work, worship, relax and love in the challenge called life.

Brett would like to invite you to take a look at Asia through his eyes.

Brett has on display 36 large prints from his extensive travels throughout Asia. They range from portraits, to landscapes, to street photography, to nature close-ups and more. There was one shot in particular, a Mongolian tent shot wide-angle with an impressive storm brewing in the skies above, that I found simply stunning.

The exhibition finishes up on the 18th of July, so you’d better be quick if you want to catch it.

Dee Kramer is a local photographer specialising in panoramic images. He has just opened his new gallery, situated at the base of Macquarie Pass National Park, where you can see many of his stunning local panoramas hanging on the walls. As well as the gallery, Dee displays and sells his prints at local and Sydney markets (upcoming market dates are displayed on his web site).

Visit the site at DeeKramer.com and let us know what you think.

Our planned activity for last night fell through, and George Hofsteters came to our rescue with an entertaining and thought-provoking look at some of his past works (both prints and slides).

George once took pictures for giant corporations and for normal individuals – he took them for money and for art. He has been an active judge on the camera club circuit and has judged for such major competitions as the Sydney International Exhibition of Photography. Four of his best prints are held in the permanent collection of the Melbourne Art Gallery.

George talked about his art, his motivation, his philosophy and, in response to one member’s question, his epitaph.

You can see more of George’s work on the web at the Bundeena Art Trail site, or if you’re in the neighbourhood pop in and check out the Art Trail itself.

Local photographer Daniel Jones joined us for the SIEP slide screening last night.

Daniel has a very interesting style of photographic montage, with which he endeavours to communicate the entire experience of a place rather than just a pictorial depiction of it. Definitely worth a look if you’re interested in seeing some less conventional photography. My favourite is Inter-Tidal Interweave, in the colour gallery.