The second occasion of the portrait photography class took place last Sunday. Martin Szipal, our instructor, looked just a bit less extravagant than last time.

The session was devoted mainly to lighting.

“Why do we talk about light, when shadow gives the essence of the photo? Shadow gives dimension.”

We started again with his pictures as good examples and he brought quite some magazine pictures as bad ones. “A student of mine once asked me: ‘Why do you say bad things about other photographers?’ And I told him: ‘Seeing only good pictures you cannot learn anything.’”

“Look at this picture. No shadow at all.“ Then he showed eye close-ups from today magazines where we could see three or even four light sources reflected in the eye. “Is that natural? Do we walk on the street with four lights pointing at us?”

“No shadow means no shape.”

“The agent brings in a client, and the agent says that soft lit smiling face is to be shot, because he is so damn smart. I made that shot and some others too. See, completely different photos of the same guy.”

“One light gives shape to the subject and when you lit the background as well that gives dimension.” Of course the one light he mentioned is not on the camera.

He pulled out an old picture he shot of a woman with apparently a window reflected in her eye. “I just put a cross on the bang.” Bang is – as we realized – the soft-box.

Martin illustrated his talk with pictures of an egg lit differently and an actual (not photographed) mug and a simple table lamp.

“There are a few things about light that you need to know. Highlight, shadow and their transition to each other.”

“The Sun, when there are now clouds, is a spot light. Spot light gives different shadows than soft light.” There was the mug lit by the table lamp. On the mug we could see the highlight and the shady areas, while on the table the strong edged shadow that the mug dropped. He put a silk sheet between the lamp and the mug. It resulted that the difference between the highlight and shade decreased on the mug and the edge of the shadow on the table softened. Then he folded the silk and the shadow almost disappeared. This is exactly what David Hobby meant by apparent light size.

He showed a photo of a girl. “How do you think it was shot? It was outside at high noon and there was a sheet above here to filter – almost block – Sun light.” And he showed the same thing in the studio: a strong light was directed to the ceiling and he stood under it with an umbrella held above his head. “See, the light is coming from the wall. It reflects the light. It does not come from above.”

At a moment I asked what Martin exactly meant last time by saying that contemporary photography is over-composed. He said that the angles and geometric forms appear on those photographs.
An other participant asked what gear he used for portraiture. Nikon F2 with 300mm lens was the answer. “I always shoot portrait at F2.8” he added.
An other question to him was about other photographers he respects for some reason. And he mentioned Irving Penn (Penn on Wikipedia) and Richard Avedon (Avedon on Wikipedia).

He said that lighting depends on the model. He never plans lighting in advance.

“You cannot be in love with your model. You can see only the shape and form, not whether she is georgous or not. If you are in love with her you see everything perfect on her. You don’t notice what should be hidden.”

Look at these photos. The first three was taken with a strobe light hitting through a soft box as a main light and those magic white board reflectors used as fill light. Only the direction of the light was different (and surely her smile, which should not have been there as Martin said later). On the first one the strobe was camera left, on the second right and for the third one almost exactly above the camera.

Click on the pictures to see the strobe reflecting in her eye.

When making the photograph below the model was lit by one single continuous 1000W light directed to the wall behind the model. See the wonderful hairlight. And her face was lit entirely by reflected light. Her otherwise smooth skin became even smoother. The quality of the pic is not perfect due to the hand held 1/30 sec exposure and the ISO 500 sensitivity, but that was not the point. Here is a werk photo about scene with the model, light stand and the reflector boards.

Martin said that he uses at home a single 500W continuous halogen light with various number of sheets in front of that to soften the light. Furthermore he has a big window too that he can leverage as a source of avaiable light. Hey, do we really need a studio?

“Once in a TV show the reporter asked me: ‘Martin, when walking on the streets and traveling on the tram, do you watch the girls’ faces continuously thinking how to photograph them?’ And I said: ‘Girls have some other parts too that I like to look at.’”

We touched upon cropping pictures. The studio owner who organized the class and invited Martin said that Martin was ahead of his age with at least 30 years with his cropping techniques. Martin added: “Once I was going through someone’s pictures on the computer with her standing next to me. She was saying bad one, bad one, bad one. Just passed by a photo and ops. I went back, cropped it and she said: ‘Oh God, am I that beautiful?’”
And one more on cropping: “They asked me: Martin, how do you teach? and I said: With scissors.”

He finished the second session with telling that he shares everything with us. “You are not competition for me. If I were in my twenties, I wouldn’t tell you all. ”

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Portrait Photography Class – Session #1
Portrait Photography Class – Session #3
Portrait Photography Class – Session #4
Portrait Photography Class – Session #5
Portrait Photography Class – Session #6
Portrait Photography Class – Session #7
Portrait Photography Class – Session #8