Absolute Beginners Workshop

After a 3-year break it was fantastic to get back to to be showing people her to do location portrait photography. We had our friends Andi, Andy and Michele, and a new model called Rachel, to play with around the exchange area of Leeds. 

The main focus of the workshop was settings and how to make the most of a background – so we had a couple of exercises to start with, including the “filling the frame at every lens length you have” test – starting in my case at 16 mm and working my way back to 200 mm. This is a great thing to do in any photography genre because it shows you how the subject changes with focal length as well as how the background changes in relation to the model.

Here are some of the photos

Rachel – long lens, wide aperture, gives a blurry background

Michele – shooting with the sun behind her, gives a golden glow to her hair

Andi, light behind him again

Michele – I moved the other side of her so the sun was lighting her, just to illustrate the difference

Andy – showing how to make silhouettes when there’s a great sky behind the model

Andi – finding textures in the background – here a black door

Rachel – Adding a splash of colour