Last weekend, I attended the Controlling Natural Light Workshop by Erik Valind at Studios LIC in Long Island City. I’ve been friends with Erik through social media for a while, and recently met him in person at Adobe’s Creative Cloud Announcement back in June. I think that in any field, it is important to learn as much about your craft as possible, so when I heard that Erik was having a workshop nearby, I decided to sign up.
What I thought was so interesting about Erik’s workshop was that it taught us how to shoot at times of the day that weren’t exactly optimal. While most of us prefer to shoot at sunrise or sunset, when the light is the best. Sometimes, that just isn’t possible, so it was really interesting to me to learn some techniques to help me get the shot in the middle of the afternoon, when the light is less than optimal.
Armed with a set of Sunbounce diffusers and reflectors, Erik walked a group of 10 of us through his workflow for both knocking down the harsh sunlight, and building it up so that our subjects can be properly lit no matter what time of day we are forced to shoot in.
During the course of the day, our amazing model Madison Massey patiently posed for the 10 of us while Erik walked us through several scenarios. Each of us got a few minutes to snap a few shots of her during each scenario, and I have to say that I was extremely impressed with how well Madison worked with the entire group, giving each of us plenty of strong poses, and time, to get our shots in.
If you ever have a chance to attend one of Erik’s workshops, definitely give it some consideration. He is a fantastic instructor and did an awesome job planning and teaching his workshop. Below are a few of my favorite photos from the event.
