Portrait Photography 101 Class Recap: Portrait Photography Classes San Francisco
This past weekend I taught a great San Francisco photography class ("Portrait Photography 101") at Makeshift Society. I was joined by the very talented Sarah Deragon of Portraits to the People - who just happens to be an old student of mine, and has built an incredibly successful photography business for herself. We each taught our own unique approaches to portrait photography classes, giving our students a very well-rounded understanding of technique, personal style, and practical advice for creating beautiful portraits with natural light.
I love teaching photography classes about natural light portraiture. Students get so excited when they learn that they can improve their photography immensely with a simple understanding of aperture, shutter speed, ISO, depth of field and the help of my favorite tool- a reflector. See above for a 'behind the scenes' image of students creating a portrait, and the below result. A really strong image!
Here's another 'behind the scenes' image of how the above portrait was created.
As humans, we're lucky to have access to this little thing called the SUN. It gives us all the light we need for a beautiful, naturally lit portrait. Our class happened on a slightly overcast, yet very bright San Francisco day which for me is the perfect lighting condition. Though the light was techincally flat, using a simple reflector added just the right amount of pop to fill in faces and create contrast. I was very happy with the work my students created, and know everyone walked away from our San Francisco photography class with a bunch of new tools and techniques. (And thanks to those who shared their class images with Sarah and I- they're all really impressive!)
Sarah and I are planning a repeat of "Portrait Photography 101" for July 2014 at Makeshift Society in San Francisco. Please stay tuned for more details.