But back to the OneLight workshop. How shall I describe it?

Enlightening (no pun intended). Informative. Cool. Awesome. And Wow.

It’s one thing to be good at what you do and know your craft, it’s another to be able to teach it to others. Zack is one of those people who excels at both. While he didn’t shy away from the technical, he also explained and demonstrated it in such a way that creative right-brain minds can understand. And of course, left-brainers had no problems, either. It was especially wonderful to attend the workshop with Jay, and I can’t wait to start incorporating what we learned into our work. And if you’re still wondering what the workshop was all about and you don’t care to visit the website–it’s basically a workshop on off-camera lighting. Sounds way more boring than it was.

Take a look. After a morning presentation, Zack set up practical examples for us to work with. (A big thanks to Laura and Rebekah, our wonderful models!)

Then we headed outside to mix in more ambient light with our flash.

Here’s a photo without off-camera flash. Obviously Rebekah’s face is way underexposed.

And here the only thing that changed was the addition of light. My camera settings were the same.

And no, it did not suddenly get dark outside. Just the use of flash.

A dumpster. The perfect location for the next shot.

You see, flash doesn’t have to be obvious either.

How can this possibly look good?

And even when it gets really dark, your flash can still help you. Ambient light:

With flash.