Shenandoah SMUG | The SMUGS Blog

The Shenandoah Valley SMUG learns about portrait lighting!

March 28, 2012 Leave a comment

The Shenandoah SMUG met at the Boita Photography Studio with special guest, John Sichenze. John is a landscape and portrait photographer who has been shooting for about 40 years. He started with film and progressed to digital. He says he loves to work in the studio and to create the look he wants by controlling the light.

John went over Strobe lighting and the 5 most common lighting set ups. What I loved about this was that after he went over the lighting types, he let all of us set up the lights, meter them, and then take a picture ourselves.

5 most common Portrait lighting Set-Ups:

Broad Lighting – Main light illuminates the broad side of the face, and there is a shadow present cast from the nose onto the short side of the face. (Fills out a narrow face/broadens face)
Short Lighting – Main light is coming from the short side of the face, and the broad side of the face has the shadow. (Slims face, great for rounder faces)
Rembrandt Lighting/45 degree – You use a short light set up and work with the main light and subject position so the shadow from the nose reach or just touches the shadow on the side of the face. (Good for longer faces, use the shadow on the lower half of face to shorten the face)
Split Lighting – In lighting, we discussed that there is a patch of light cast onto the shadow side of the face. If the main light is moved so far off to the side of the subject that the patch of light on the shadow side of the face disappears, and only half the face remains lit by the main light, you have Split Lighting.
Butterfly Lighting – This term gets it’s name from the butterfly-like shadow that is cast beneath the nose of the subject.

John also discussed Main, Fill, and background lights.
Main and Fill – Good to start out with 2 stop difference from Main to fill
White background – 2 stops higher than fill
Black background – If your model’s hair is also black, you need to try and differenciate between hair and background using rim lighting.

Submitted by the Shenandoah Valley SMUG Scribe: Shauna Rudolph
Shauna is a part time portrait photographer that has just gotten more serious about her photography. She is based out of Winchester, VA. She loves to play with sport photography for fun, because it is great to be able to capture her kids in action.

Categories: SMUGs Tags: Landscape Photography, Photo groups, Photographer's Networking, Photography, Photography User Groups, Portrait Photography, Shenandoah SMUG, Shenandoah Valley Photographers, SMUG, SmugMug, SmugMug User Groups, smugs, Wedding Photography

SMUGs are looking for speakers!

December 16, 2011 5 comments

The SmugMug User Groups (SMUGs) are putting out a call for speakers for our 2012 monthly speakers series.

A SMUG is a place where you can learn, teach and meet up with other photographers who share your passion. It’s also how we can tell you what’s happening in our world and discover what’s happening in yours. SMUGs are a great way to connect with other photographers and add a few weapons to your creative arsenal. There are over 90 SMUGs worldwide. Rain or shine, it’s always a great idea to come to your SMUG’s monthly meetings. This way, you have a great collection of photos in every season!

We are looking for presenters that can speak about various photography related topics. Examples: Business topics, software, lighting, fusion, camera usage, portraits, photojournalism, sports, nature/landscape, commercial, boudoir, sports and weddings.

All types of photographers are welcome to present.

If you are interested in speaking, please send a short bio and course description and let us know why you would be great for our groups. We really want people with something interesting to say so let us know why this is you. These presentations are not sales-oriented so while you are more then welcome to mention products and workshops at the end, the bulk of the presentation should be on the chosen topic.

This is a great opportunity for anyone to get in front of a large, active group of photographers.

You will also receive a free SmugMug Pro account as a special thanks from SmugMug (for as long as you are a speaker).

To submit your presentation or if you have questions, please email Rocky Bowles at rocky@smugmug.com. Once we receive your email, we will send out a manual that explains all of the details for speaking at SMUGs.

All submissions will be kept on file and we’ll contact you if we choose your presentation.

SmugMug cannot thank you enough for your participation in becoming a speaker. It is the people like you that give SMUGs such a great reputation!

Shenandoah Valley, VA SMUG Meeting!

July 7, 2011 1 comment

If you missed the our May Meetup, then you should know that it was a blast! It was located at the Blandy Farm, a research facility for the University of Virginia.

The Virginia native trees, shrubs, and wildflowers stood tall and beautiful as we snapped away. We met together on this stunning day, with our camera equipment and brought some models. The shots turned out great, as you can tell from the photos.

It was a great way to learn from one another and build our skills. Each SMUG is always informative, and every time I leave, I feel like I come away with a new piece of information to make my pictures better. We did some shots without flash, using natural light as well.

Once the sun set, we set up a couple flash units with umbrellas and shot some in the field. These pictures also turned out fantastic, because we used the nature to our creative advantage. Make sure to attend the next meeting if you missed this one, or you have yet to attend. If you think this one sounded fun, then you’ll really be sorry if you miss next month’s meeting!