Working with Natural Light to Make Flattering & Dynamic Portraits
Sat September 30th, 9am-6pm • Hunt’s Providence
Recommended Prerequisite: Basic knowledge of your camera
Class Level: Beyond Basic
Instructors: Bobbi Lane & Lee Varis
Join Bobbi Lane & Lee Varis on an adventure in natural light portrait photography! Portraits Unplugged is all about natural light, nothing technical or mechanical. This dynamic husband and wife team teaches you how to find and work with natural light to make flattering and dynamic portraits of any subject. The beauty of available light is its ability to describe your subject from powerful and strong to soft and creamy. Bobbi & Lee show you how to work with all kinds of light: hard, soft, bounced, window, “garage door”, reflected, diffused, etc. Our only tools are reflectors and diffusers and we use them to manipulate the light effectively.
We will be utilizing different natural light locations where we find a wide variety of environments to pose our subjects. Our models will be women and men in a range of ages. We will work on posing, directing, and light control – in dark and light backgrounds, for a variety of moods. Again, Bobbi and Lee will work with small groups to provide personal support for your photo experience, and every participant will have ample opportunity to shoot.
This workshop will raise your level of awareness and help you be a better natural light photographer.
Students must be familiar with their cameras and lenses. A medium telephoto lens is suggested.
The basic outline for the day:
9 am: Class overview, student intros, image presentation and shooting demos with reflectors and diffusers
12-1: Break for lunch- travel to location
1 pm: Scouting locations for backgrounds and scenes. Models arrive and prepare
1:30- 5:30: students photograph models in different natural light situations including headshots, ¾ and full length.
5:30 -6 wrap up
Instructor Bios:
Bobbi Lane and Lee Varis
The Mistress of Light and The Sultan of Skin
The dynamic duo of photo-education, Bobbi & Lee, are partners in life as well as art. Together they bring two lifetimes of experience, along with enthusiasm and creative techniques to their fun filled workshops!
Lee, owner/founder of Varis PhotoMedia, is a photo-illustrator now working in the Boston area. He has been involved in commercial photography for over 35 years. He was an early adopter of digital technology, and currently works with photography and computer graphics to create images for use in advertising, commercial graphics and multimedia. His work has been featured on movie posters, video box covers, CD covers, and numerous brochures, catalogs and magazine articles. He is responsible for the moth on the “Silence of the Lambs” movie poster! His creative imaging has also been featured in National Geographic and Fortune magazines, as well as various trade publications. His book “Skin: The Complete Guide to Digitally Lighting, Photographing and Retouching Face and Bodies”, has been a best-seller for 10 years. He is a Master of all things Adobe, and has been an Adobe Community Professional and Influencer since 2008.
Bobbi is an award-winning commercial photographer specializing in creative portraits on location and in studio. Her multi-faceted approach to photography incorporates over 35 years of technical experience with innovative artistic interpretation. She primarily shoots people on location for editorial, corporate, and advertising accounts, as well as photographing “real people” and travel for stock. As a dedicated photo educator, she brings insight and enthusiasm to her students in workshops held worldwide. She is known for teaching lighting techniques for portraits, both natural and flash, and also for leading photo travel workshops. As an author she has written two books, a wide variety of magazine articles, has recorded multiple videos on lighting, portraiture and posing, and teaches online classes. At APA National’s 25th Anniversary, Bobbi was honored with a Special Recognition Award for Education.
Photo District News also named Bobbi one of 13 of the Top Workshop Instructors.
Their websites are:
www.bobbilane.com www.varis.com