Chairman of the Bored

It is a simple shot really. Late morning sunlight washing through the bay window balanced with a QFlash fired into my FJ Westcott Apollo Orb. The whole session (with set up) took about 4 minutes. Thankfully, my twelve year old son was able to bring some attitude to the shot (I did mention that he's 12 right?). In Lightroom 4, I converted to black & white with my favorite custom preset that I created to resemble a selenium tone look on fibre paper.

Plain, Simple, Beautiful Light

This image is just about as easy as it gets. It was created with big, beautiful light thanks to Westcott and Profoto. Then, all you need is an amazing subject. She challenged me, she told me that she felt like she wasn't really all that photogenic. Haha, I love challenges. All I had to do was crop, tilt and convert to black & white in Lightroom. I love my job.

Westcott and the Eternal Light

Recently, I gave a program on light to a group of professional photographers in the Finger Lakes region of NY. Thanks to FJ Westcott and the coolest rep in the world, David Piazza, I was able to demonstrate the beauty of continuous lighting. The images were created with TD6 SpiderLites and for a few others, I used the new ICE lights. What a blast.

Profile lighting is so easy when you can see your light.

This was photographed near a window and the ICE lights provided perfect fill.

More with the ICE Lights and ambient light in the background.

The ICE Lights really impressed me.

Super Monday in Ripley

For this Super Monday class, I had the pleasure to teach with my friend Stephanie Cunningham. The cool thing about it is the fact that she had attended a bunch of my workshops over the years, and now for the first time, she had a chance to teach. It's so rewarding to watch photographers grow and apply the things
they have learned.

 For my segment of the class, I worked with ambient light mixed with flash.While the weather was less than cooperative, I made these images in a garage.

 I had a blast creating low key images in Steph's studio. Thanks to FJ Westcott and the greatest lab in the world, Lenzart.

Another Super Monday

In Search of Beautiful Light
Stephanie Cunningham, CPP
Dana Nordlund, Cr. Photog., CPP

This program will address the quest for light. Beautiful light is all around us, but sometimes, that light needs a gentle nudge to help it become beautiful on our subject. Steph will explore the nostalgia and romance of a vintage look image. See how to recreate this classic feel with studio strobes! Whether it’s a high key look or a film noir, we'll cover modifying your light to mimic stage lights, backdrops and styling for your subject. Post processing suggestions in photoshop will give your images some sparkle. Everything old is new again!

In Dana's part of the journey, we will make beautiful, soft light from many different situations. We will work with available light as well as add artificial light while keeping the look natural. We will learn the process working with reflectors, diffusion, flash, custom white balancing and hand held metering. We will be shooting outside (weather permitting), with and without flash, inside by window light and in a studio setting. It's all about the simple and effective mechanics of lighting. Join us as we search for beautiful light.

How Mad Do You Have To Be (the tour continues)

 
Bringing photographic education to the masses without the use of Photoshop actions, that's what we're all about. On August 12, 2012, John Metcalfe and Dana Nordlund presented a workshop to the Southwestern New York Association of Professional Photographers (SNAPP). The event was held at the beautiful Robert H. Jackson Center in Jamestown, NY.

Of course, John had to test his dance moves from behind the projection screen.

The theatre was truly way too classy for us, but we did our best to not wreck the place.

Dave Piazza from FJ Westcott demonstrates to toughness of the new ICE Light.

Even the front porch on this place was super cool.

A Day With Wilhelmina

 In August, John Metcalfe and myself had the honor of presenting a day long workshop for models at the Wilhelmina Rochester facility. Thanks to David Piazza of FJ Westcott, we had some beautiful light to work with. I used the TD6 Spiderlights with an assorted array of Westcott light modifiers.

For most of the images, a 4 light set up was used. The quality of light was absolutely consistent throughout the day. 

 For this image, I balanced 1 TD6 with the ambient daylight from the windows. Because the TD6's are daylight balanced, I did not have to worry about color shift.