I have never been one to photograph people, but I have never been into Wildlife photography either. It seems 2021 has been the year of learning for me. That’s exactly what this Case Study/Course is all about. I recently went to the Warbirds Photography Workshop to learn Portrait Photography in a B-29 hangar with my all-time favorite portrait photographer, Joel Grimes. I was an attendee, not an instructor, and it was liberating to put myself in the student’s chair and soak up all the knowledge I could from Joel. I learned a lot, but what I learned was NOT what I expected to learn. What I expected to learn was a bunch of lighting jargon and equations for lights and light modifiers in a slightly impersonal setting. What I got instead was a fresh look at lighting. Joel demystified it, made it SO simple, and was the most engaging instructor I have met in a long time.
So what I bring to you is a case study of me working with light with my favorite and most accessible models, Michael, William, and Matthew. I will share some things I learned about lighting, put it into practical application, and then show you how I build my composites in Photoshop. This is not a compositing course, there is some assumed knowledge here, but it will show you how an artist works. More importantly, it will show you that even the most experienced educators need to learn from others.
In This Case Study, You Will Learn:
1 – Intro to Working with Light
2 – What I Learned From Joel
3 – The Photoshoot
4 – Culling and Raw Processing
5 – Cutting out the Subjects
6 – Spider-Man Michael
7 – Ironman William
8 – Black Panther Matthew
9 – Building the Atmosphere
10 – Conclusive Thoughts on the Composite
