How I Developed my Lighting Style

At some point, the system I was using, (Strobosol Mono Light with my Larson Starfish) was working well until my Strobosol died.  I had to find another light source that would hopefully take it's place.  At that time, Larson was still in business so if I picked up a different monolight, surely they would have a the correct bracket for it.  Got one, was happy until I left another studio I was working for and started my own business.  Then I didn't have space so used different types of light modifiers (umbrellas, reverse umbrellas, soft boxes, etc) for the time being. Since my time was my own, I started experimenting with different types of light (primarily tungsten).  I purchased a set of Photogenic Mini Spots (we called them Indy Dinks) which ran me about $150 each.  They are now over $300 on Amazon. I also used it with barn doors so I could control the direction & target the light on particular parts of the face or body.  This allowed me t...

I had been attending the West Coast School of Professional Photography for several years now.  It was a one week intensive instructional period with a featured instructor and their specialty.  Every year, the school sponsors evening classes from other instructors and opens it to the entire school to attend.  That's where I got to see Dean Collins.  He was the most influential instructor of all the others I had learned from because he knew his lighting techniques backwards, forwards, upside down, right side up.  When he offered a one week class the following year, I signed up for it right away..  Best $$$ I spent. The one mantra that I got from him was two fold.  1 - the larger your light source, the softer your light will be.  and 2 - the closer your light source, the softer your light will be.  His main light at that time was a Larson 52" Starfish.  It was generally positioned just out of camera view (very close to the subject). ...

After attending the Hawaii Version of West Coast School the first year, I now knew that my best way of improving was to join the Professional Photographers of America & the Professional Photographers of Hawaii and take advantage of any educational opportunities that popped up and practice a lot.  I was fortunate that I knew the 26th Narcissus Queen and she asked me to photograph her cover shot. Here's the interesting part, if I knew then what I knew now, I could have shot the cover somewhere else with better lighting than what I did then.  I had to deliver a color transparency (which meant color slide film) and I had 10 shots to create the photo.  And I couldn't retouch the image. Being part of the Narcissus Pageant allowed me to have a source of models in case I wanted to try something new, work on my lighting, work on my posing etc... Along the way I left my retail job and joined an up and coming portrait studio.  They were using the Photogenic Flashmast...

After graduating college, going into the Coast Guard, I had a full time job and time to work on being a photographer.  My next step was to get a set of studio lights.  I was a frequent visitor to Anderson's Camera and had my eyes set on a Norman P250 four light unit.  I knew very little about strobe lighting so everything was by the seat of my pants. It wasn't a very powerful unit but it was workable. These were the type of flashheads that I used.  The modeling lamps were actually vacuum cleaner bulbs (25 watts) which made for very weak modeling lights.  I also had access to space at the University where I could set up the unit and there was background paper.  BUT, I didn't have a flash meter yet.  Trying to decipher watt seconds, BCPS, reflector variables etc was a challenge.  It was a lot of guess work and somehow I was able to take educated guesses on exposures as one really didn't know if the exposure was correct until the film wa...

I've always wanted to be a professional photographer.  Because it didn't require expensive equipment, I started learning location photography largely by practicing a lot.  Someplace along the way, I knew I had to learn studio lighting but studio strobes were expensive and on a student's budget it was not practical.  I also knew very little about proper lighting so I would use what I had.  Many of my early shots were done with an off camera flash (OCF).  Cameras used film, focusing was manual, exposure was done based on the film instruction sheet or if you were lucky, your camera had a built in light meter. I needed to learn techniques for studio photos but could only afford what was called "hot lights" back then.  Light was provided by a 250 watt tungsten bulb which was really bright and hot.    I just set up the lights (one on each side) and did portraits.  Then I picked up a book on studio lighting published by Kodak and my knowledge...