Building the Dramatic Portrait
Westcott invites you to an inspirational lecture with Joel Grimes, a commercial advertising photographer, who has been working in the industry for over 30 years. Many consider Joel to be one of the leading inst...
The Art of Portrait Photography: Part 4
Environmental Portraits
Posing singer Melissa Phillippe in front of her piano adds context and helps create a portrait that reflects her passions. Shooting form a position above the subject has a slimming effe...
Between the Sheets with Jen: Ice Light Review
"My answer is YES YES YES. I love the Ice Light. The first thing that attracted me to it is the quality of light. It really blew away any of those cheap video lights out there." - Jen Rozenbaum
I often...
Using Diffusion Fast Flags for Portraits
Lan and I decided to shoot a couple of new avatars for ourselves today since the ones we have been using are 3 years old and we don’t really look the same (I’m now a little fatter and a LOT balder, but Lan is m...
The Art of Portrait Photography: Part 2
Executive & Business Portraits
In this executive portrait the goal is the same but the approach is more subdued, formal and professional in nature. The look and feel for any portrait? is generally dete...
The Art of the Portrait Photography: Part 1
Portraits were some of the first images to grab my attention and draw me into my lifelong love affair with photography. The portrait work of Richard Avedon, with their stark black and white imagery, many shot o...
Lighting Rumours: X-Drop Backdrop Review
The X-Drop Backdrop System was recently featured on Lighting Rumours. Bruce Foster, photographer out of the UK, reviewed the X-Drop with the Green Screen backdrop.
If I had to sum up the X-Drop, I would ca...
Diffuse Light and Alter Light using the Scrim Jim
Erik Valind, Professional Photographer and Westcott Top Pro, talks about his favorite product—the Westcott Scrim Jim. He walks you through how he uses each of the Scrim Jim panels to diffuse light and alter lig...
Scrim Jim: Thinking Outside the Box
The Scrim Jim: Like a Swiss Army Knife
When talking about different lighting modifiers I like to point out the basic features and benefits of each. Equally important though, is the outside of the box thinking ...
Comparing Large vs. Small Photo Umbrellas
Photographic umbrellas come in so many sizes nowadays, perhaps even more so than the common rain variety. Let's set aside those and the for a moment and discuss some key differences and techniques, when select...
Composite Photography Lit by the Spiderlite TD6
In this composite of a mountain biker in Boulder, Colorado, Mark S. Johnson's goal was to capture the feeling of hopping off the bike after an epic (and muddy) ride. To accomplish the effect, he employed his st...
Black-and-White Action Shot Lighting Setup
Black-and-White Action shot by photographer João Carlos using a
The Medium Scrim Jim Kit is a useful photography tool that allows photographers to diffuse, reflect, cut down, or completely block light. Wit...
The Ice Light for Outdoor Fill
The Ice Light, , is a new little lighting tool that resembles a light saber in a big way. This makes it a blast to use right out of the gates. It was designed for being mobile and easy to use in event photogr...
Shooting Outdoors: Headshots in the park
Shooting Outdoors Rocks
When given the choice between shooting in a studio or shooting outdoors in the world, I'll drag my camera gear and subject out that door any day of the week. The sheer volume of differe...
Directing Speedlites for Portraiture
For this portrait shoot, Bob Davis had two speedlites in Group B manual mode 1/8th power with the flash heads manually zoomed to 200mm. One camera left and one camera right. The main speedlite was in Group A wi...
Shooting with Perspective
Perspective
It's good to have a little perspective - to know where you stand and just how big (or small) your world and the things in it are. Most pictures we see include something we recognize - a perso...
Using Apollo Orb to Control Light with Speedlites
F11, 1/500th, ISO 200
Levels Aimed At:
Simple lighting setup with a little practice. One light source (Key light), setup. Controlling background exposure to render your creative results.
Anything I should k...
Large Octabank Alternatives for Portability
Most photographers love Octabanks. The light quality if amazing! Unfortunately, they are not easy on the wallet or easy to transport either. Usually rather heavy, they require a specific speed-ring to use with ...
Speedlites for Action Photography
Explorer of Light Tyler Stableford takes us to the legendary Snowmass Terrain Park in Snowmass, Colorado, where he utilizes the radio functionality of the Canon 600EX-RT Speedlite system to achieve a perfect ba...
Scott Kelby: Rules of Composition
A few weeks back, Scott Kelby hosted the first ever Google + Conference for photographers. In a lecture (over an hour long) Scott sheds light on how he believes photographers should work their scenes to find th...
Portrait Shoot using an Apollo and Stripbanks
This portrait shoot by photographer Erik Valind is set up with a Westcott 50-inch Apollo as the main light source, and two 12" x 36" Pro Stripbanks acting as rim lights, coming in from the side.
The 50″ Mega...