A few weeks back I met up with fellow photographers Graham Fry and Rich Meston for a quick fun shoot in Calshot, Hampshire.

Unfortunately our model dropped out with less than 24 hours notice, but her place was quickly filled by the excellent Arran (many thanks!)

Here are a few of my favourite shots from the day. I hope you enjoy them!




“Hmm… it *should* work…”




Mr Meston getting down.




A total mistake – but I like it!

This post – the first on my blog – is a quick write-up of the day, and is interspersed with many (some might say too many!) photos taken during the workshop.

In line with my in-my-head no-bullshit policy, this account will highlight both good and bad aspects of the day, so that it can hopefully act as worthwhile feedback for all involved. I will be happy to include any responses within post body, if so wished.

First shot of the day. Inside one of the bedrooms of the house, learning to resist my impulses and to let the background blow out.

The first thing to deal with is that I didn’t book myself on a workshop called “Into The Light” at Matara. No, I booked a workshop called “Fashion Fusion” at Maunsel House, at a not insignificant cost of £440, expecting something similar to a previous workshop as described on Damien’s blog:

“The day was billed as interior fashion shooting using continuous light. In a fashion shoot the clothes are the star and so it is important to capture the detail. We fused a fashion shoot with some portraits to make a complete collection of shots fit for an album or catalogue.”

Unfortunately the Fashion Fusion page is long gone from the Lovegrove Consulting web page (I booked in November last year), so I’m not able to say exactly how my expected course was billed, but I do know that it had been expanded to cover speedlight work with Martin Hill.

So, even if we assume that Into The Light is Fashion Fusion with a different name (though I don’t think that’s entirely the case; there was a definite focus on contre-jour photography in this workshop that I wasn’t expecting), what I found less understandable were the facts that a) the location was switched, and b) I wasn’t explicitly told about the changes to the course. The first I head of it was when I received an email from Damien’s PA, talking about a workshop I’d never heard of. I thought there had been some kind of mistake.

Anyway, moving on. I decided to accept the changes, as natural light (and specifically shooting towards the light) was, perhaps co-incidentally, something I’d been thinking more and more of over the past few months. So, on with the workshop!

Session 1

Over by the window, playing with light and shadow. Love the quality of the light on Katy’s back here. First of my black and white shots, another thing I find very difficult – my brain usually seems to work in colour and feels as if something too important to lose is missing when converted to mono.

We met for coffee at 9am, a chance to meet some of the other attendees. Another workshop was also being run at the house the same day – child photography I think – so in total there were 15+ people, not including models/MUA/instructors.

The Fashion Fusion Into The Light (sorry) workshop was a fairly equal mix of Canon and Nikon shooters, so we were split into two groups, with us Nikon guys gracefully accepting a lone Canon shooter as an honorary member. First up, Nikon shooters went inside with Damien with the Canon people heading out to shoot flash with Martin.









Switching things down a gear, working the shadows and keeping things low-key. Not something I’ve tried before, but will certainly try again.





In one of the bedrooms upstairs we met with our model for the session, Katy, wearing a sheer white dress that worked perfectly for the shots we were due to take. Starting off on the bed, then moving over to the window, Damien introduced us to the techniques needed. At least, I think that’s what he did. More of that later!








We then moved into the bathroom and did the classic (you might call it clichéd) mirror shot.





A quick room change into the bathroom, with Katy in the “putting on lipstick” pose. Nice and clean, good “getting ready” material for wedding photographers I suppose.












Room change. This time the room had white-painted wooden shutters over the windows, and a white blind perfect for creating a huge light source, with the shutters themselves working to bounce light back towards Katy.





After the “behind the shutters” shots above, Damien broke out the big guns I’d been waiting for in the form of his 1200W Lupo HMI daylight-balanced fresnel light. Placed on a stand, directed towards Katy on a settee, the light produced by this unit was beautiful. And they’re a bargain at just £1200…

We were shown how the barn doors worked and the slashes of light that can be produced using them, along with the use of a diffuser sheet. All fairly elementary stuff for sure, but useful information if you’ve never shot continuous light before.








The settee shots. Lit with window light and a “1200W” Lupo fresnel spot.





Then is was off with the artificial light, and down with Katy on to the carpet – a scene that would replay throughout the day in several variations. Light coming through the window was very variable as the cloud cover came and went, but the use of shadows cast by the window to frame the model was the idea.








Not dead. Sleeping in the sun.





It’s here that I’ll bring up my first real criticism of the day, and one that was echoed by a few other voices I heard. The problem seemed to be that Damien, by reputation a cheery kind of chap, just didn’t seem to be fully “there”.

His instruction was somewhat rushed and at times a little hard to understand, and to be honest there could have been more of it. I don’t recall Damien even looking closely at any of the photos the delegates were taking, and certainly not offering much in the way of advice or criticism. In fact, I almost got the impression that Damien was more concerned with getting shots of his own, treating the day as a practice session, than he was on helping us improve our work.

This situation unfortunately didn’t improve much over the course of the day. Yes, some very interesting and useful information was dispensed, but not enough of it and in too much of a vague manner. I can only assume, from other feedback I’ve heard, that this was just an “off” day. A shame.

That’s all I’m going to write on this, and should say that it didn’t ruin the day – I just felt that info wasn’t flowing as well as it could have done. It was more of a “here’s how I do this, now you try” session. In hindsight, I should have asked more questions.








Back on the Lupo, concentrating on the transition and interplay between highlight and shadow. Look, black and white again! I can do it!





Session 2

Mid-morning, we stopped for a much-needed coffee and biscuit, then the groups switched tutors and we headed outside with Martin for some flash work of his model, Ri. Initially using speedlights, triggered by the new Pocket Wizard MiniTT1s and FlexTT5s. This is kind of where I’m at home, so wasn’t sure what to expect.









Ri in bridal attire, standing by a tree (as you do). Key light is where Ri is looking, hair/rim light hidden behind the tree (or Ri’s head, in the second shot).





Martin’s enthusiasm is infectious, and you can tell he’s genuinely excited by the results he gets. Again, I’m not sure there was that much criticism coming from him – everything was awesome – but the passion was showing in spades! One thing I was amazed by was just how wide Martin shoots – you can see his excellent shots from the day on his blog. Martin also seemed more keen on helping than shooting, pretty much standing back once he’d set up and worked out his camera settings.

What came next was something I wasn’t fully expecting, and something I was really looking forward to trying. We ditched the speedlights and broke out the big lights again, in this case the Broncolor Mobil 1200Ws units. Two heads (variable power split but left on 50/50), one or two power packs.











Some shots with the Broncolor Mobil kit. I’ve left one of the lights in here, as I kind of like it!

There is no phallic subtext here. Not at all.





Unfortunately there were a couple of technical hurdles during this session. Firstly, those of us who had brought our own radio triggers and had dutifully followed the instructions to Factory Reset them were unable to use them to trigger the Bron kit, as the PWs used were configured to something other than the standard channel.

Secondly, and something that was probably compounded by our being the second group, the battery packs didn’t last. In the shot below of Ri by the tree stump, there’s a second light behind that was supposed to supply some rim light – but it gave up the ghost before I shot.

The first of these was avoidable, though it made little difference in the end as the Bron packs couldn’t keep up with rate of fire of the crowd as it was, so throwing another few people in would have had it firing during recycle more often. The second – running out of power – is something that I hope can be addressed for future workshops. I’m not sure the guys had tried using them on a full day workshop before.









Colour or black & white? I can’t decide…





That was the morning. Then a decent if not-too-exciting lunch, and on to the afternoon…

Session 3








Back on the big lights. Lupo 1200 spot, mixed with daylight from window at top of stairs.





Throughout the day we were shooting in some pretty low light, and we all brought monopods to help steady ourselves. Some quick tips from Damien helped with monopod technique. I’ve had a monopod for years but hardly used it, I can certainly see myself taking it along to shoots a lot more often now.







Turn off the Lupo, go low-key with just the window light.




One great thing about using continuous light is that you can see exactly what it’s doing. In the example below, the Lupo has been dropped to light through the bannisters of the staircase. The nature of the light makes it easy to position the subject so the shadows are as desired, something that would be a lot more trial-and-error than with flash.









Shining the Lupo through the bars.





Off into yet another room of the expansive house, to catch sunlight streaming through a window to provide a backlight to the Lupo’s fill. Of course, this being the UK, the sun didn’t do as it was told so there was some light-shuffling to be performed.









Let those highlights blow and keep exposure up for a light and airy feel. You can see here that the Lupo is quite a hard source.





Upstairs and back on natural light for the rest of Damien’s session, we camped out in the corridor with light streaming through behind. Very dark, high ISOs, low shutter speeds – but great results with the monopod and setting exposure how we wanted the scene to look, not how the camera meter told us it should look. Very refreshing, very freeing.

To be honest, I’ve not shot so much in Manual exposure mode for a long time.










Dark corridor, getting ISO 800 at around 1/40s, here on a 105mm lens at f/4.













I couldn’t help but notice the shadows Katy’s legs and feet made on the carpet.





The last part of this session with Damien was in yet another of the house bedrooms, and involved controlling light using nothing but what we had available to us – in other words, the windows and curtains.

All of the shots below were taken using just that; carefully positioned curtains and careful exposure.








One of my favourite shots of the day, this is a complete copy of one that Damien demonstrated. Nothing but a thin strip of light through drawn curtains and keeping the exposure low.













On the floor again. Curtains just slightly open, same place as the silhouette above but lying down.














Controlling the ambient through exposure, dropping the background to blackness.













More window light. Katy is perched on a table in a bay window, with the curtains mostly drawn shut. On the left, only the right curtain is open. In the b&w on the right, another of my favourite shots from the day, both L & R curtains were opened.





Final shot was using Damien’s home-made soft-focus filter, constructed from a clear 77mm filter carefully disassembled, gauzy fabric added, and then reassembled. I was promised this filter would change my life…









Photo on the left is unfiltered, photo on the right using Damien’s soft-focus filter. It’s a bit much for my tastes – 1980′s glam anyone? – but an interesting effect.





Session 4

Outside again with the flash master, Martin. First off, a fairly simple bride-in-doorway setup using speedlights. For all these shots, the speedlights were held using one of Damien’s custom Gemini flash brackets that allow two flashes to be positioned on-axis in a modifier. A neat design, and better in some ways than my trusty tri-flash bracket.













All hard light, bare speedlights.













Bouncing the key speedlights into a silver parabolic umbrella made all the difference in my opinion. I have an irrational hatred of harsh nose-shadows (see the shots with unmodified flash previously for examples)!





Then out to the lake in the grounds. It was a fairly still afternoon at this point, and the mirror-like finish was too good to not take full advantage of. We set up the Bron kit again.









Waiting for a play with the lights, I shot some more natural photos. The light was gorgeous when the sun came out.

















Big lights. I like them so much, I left them in the shots…





This was the session that finally convinced me that I needed a sun shade for my camera LCD. The problem with shooting outdoors, especially with the slightly foggy glass on the D3, is that it’s very hard to see the rear screen on your camera. One of the guys on the course (thanks Gwyn!) let me try his
Hoodman HoodLoupe , and I was converted. They’re pretty pricey for a bit of plastic with a lens in it, but I’m thinking they’re practically essential for this kind of shoot.

Without one, it was impossible to judge just how much ambient light I was killing, and hence a lot of these outdoor photos required too much time in post to get looking more like how I envisioned them.









Going wider. Shooting with my D7000 I couldn’t go as wide as I would have liked, as my widest lens in the bag was a 24mm.












Time for one final shot, the bride by the house.





In summary

So… was this workshop worthwhile? Yes, despite the issues mentioned previously, I think it was. Perhaps a little expensive for the knowledge imparted, it nonetheless gave me the chance to try some techniques and styles that I’d never attempted before.

I’ll certainly be putting some of this into practice before too long, and can’t wait to see the results when I do. It’s a different mindset to the flash-lit work I usually aim for, and getting a kick to try new and different styles is never a bad thing.

If future workshops of this type can be made just a little more intensive, pitched to what I think is actually a slightly more experienced crowd than was expected, it would be very much recommended.

Update: Damien has responded privately to the comments made in this post, and is conducting an investigation in to what may have gone wrong. Thanks, Damien.

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