My Lighting Education Part 3

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 Flashmaster system.

To vary the power output of the heads, they system used interchangeable power plugs.

Since I had a working knowledge of studio lighting by the time I worked for them, I was able to be useful from early on.  They used umbrellas with the lighting units.  It was during this period that I started entering PPA's print competition.  This was the first print that I received a merit on.  Title was "Exotic Beauty" and the model was a sorority member.  She is now a successful real estate agent.

It was satisfying because a well respected professional photographer said that it would not merit but was accepted into PPA's Traveling Loan Collection which featured the top entrants of the Print Competition that year.

My next West Coast School class that taught me lighting was with Don Blair.  He was a traditionalist who used parabolic lights instead of umbrellas or soft boxes.  One had to know and SEE the lighting so one could place it in the proper place.  It was not easy but it made me respect all the classic photographers.  The go to units to use for lighting were Photogenic Studio Masters and I had to learn to use barn doors to control the light.

I couldn't find any samples of that type of lighting but probably because I preferred to use something different but at least I knew how to use it if I had to.