New D7000 user: March 2012

For the 5th straight February in a row the Photowalking Utah group has held its Studio Lighting Photowalk at the Gateway Community Church in Draper, Utah. They hold this every year to give us a break from the winter weather and to give inexperienced photographers like me a chance to see, learn about, and participate in various forms and styles of studio/portrait photography. Volunteers set up and "host" a number of various lighting scenarios, this year there were 10 different set ups ranging from window light with a reflector, all the way to full on props, multiple strobes, with various modifiers and wireless triggers. It was an absolute blast, the walk lasted four hours but I could've stayed there all day! All the models (who volunteered, but we chipped in to pay them for their time) were an absolute joy to work with and so very gracious with their time, talent, and patience of having around 200 people all staring at, directing, and photographing them over and over.

I took quite a few shots so I'll split the post in two so I don't bore you more than usual.

The first set up was an African Tribal/Jungle theme set using hot lights (4 in total if I recall correctly) The host was local photo pro Tom Sparks I've had the pleasure of interacting with Tom on Google Plus a few times and he's a great guy, full of great info and was very generous and patient with talking about this set up and how, and why to shoot with hot lights.

: Model: Shakira Farrar: She was so incredibly expressive and giving as a model! Most of the time we lined up to use the strobe triggers one at a time, but as this was a hot light set up there were always a half dozen or more photographers swarming around her taking shots. She would just rotate between them all giving expressions and poses to each in turn.

: One of my favorites!

: Not bad for being way off set and using iso 800!

Next up was a two light (softbox) set up with a model on a swing!

: Model: Lissa Legg, Lisa is Rich Legg's daughter (he's one of the founders of Photowalking Utah) and his studio was next door to the church, and it also had one of the set ups inside.

After the swing I moved over to the natural light set up which was using a north facing window, an overcast day, and some reflectors to bounce in some fill light.

: Model: Justin Schoenrock, Seriously guys shouldn't look this photogenic!

: From up on a step stool

Here are the black and white versions!

: From up on a step stool

I joked with Justin that he was going to have a million new profile pics now, I hope he likes my versions.

So that was half of the set ups I shot, I'll have the rest up in a few days.

Here are a few more of Shakira (I took more of her than anyone else - I think it was because there was no line in order to shoot her, no recycle time for flashes, and she's just awesome!)