studio lighting seminar by ken go

aura: recharged
audio: lost highway - bon jovi

i was very lucky enough to be able to attend studio lighting seminar by mr. ken go. he is a well known photographer, and anyone would highly recommend his studio lighting class which, according to him, as much as possible is being held every month. only 10 students are being accommodated every class in order to make the class and his teachings even more effective. you could check ken go's works his web site http://www.photosbykengo.com and, some of his classes' results at http://seminars.photosbykengo.com

anyway, i was one of his students for this month. the class was divided into 3 sessions. first day's a lecture that covered the basic concepts of lighting, technical explanations of studio lighting. there is also a hands on exercise on reading lighting meter, which for me is the most crucial part of the seminar. only learn on how to read them and you can construct, play with lights in order to meet your desired lighting effect. 2nd day is the actual hands on exercise where we are asked to think of a concept for the lighting effect that we want to accomplish and the actual shoot day.

we were asked to browse through the internet and magazines to look for a concept. for me i was able to get some concept from my multiply contacts. since i like images with darker theme, or i really admire photos that give much emphasize on shadows or shades or whatever they call them haha! anyway i took some prospect concepts from http://jc1975.multiply.com/ and http://joannedemesa.multiply.com/. (i hope ms carla doesn't mind, i don't think she was able to get my message yet. but thank you so much, sorry i had to get some images to show my prospect concepts.)

so the 2nd day came, and i was able to talk to my group mates about the concepts. now the grouping. mr. ken go made the grouping to maximize the learning efficiency of his students. the class was divided into 3 groups, 9 am group, followed by the 1 pm group then, lastly the 4 pm group. in our case 2 weren't able to attend his class since there was a storm since wednesday. since some would still come from the provinces and there's no flight available, so there's no way that they could come here in manila. so finally, the groupings were, 3 in the morning, 3 for the 1 pm and 2 for the 4 pm. (i think another one who belonged in the 4 pm class wasn't able to attend because he got sick). so since each member in a group will have a chance to assist his group mates during setup and will be given a chance to shoot each other's concept. we decided to think of concepts that won't overlap each other's concept.. so one group did a neutral lighting (well not too bright, not too dark lighting) with white background, then another one did a slightly brighter lighting settings slightly overexposed too and then i decided to do the darker settings with black background. for the actual setup, what happened was, for the 1st concept, the 1st member (with that concept) will do the readings of the lightings, then the others will just assist. so that basically what happened for each concept. then we shoot.

so there.. hehe.. it was a pretty pressured moment for me since ken go was there and i couldn't compose well for my portrait shot. hehe.. but anyway, i really learned so much in the seminar, i actually was "bitin" or i wish there would be more sessions and more time. but it was a pretty good learning experience. no wonder ken go's class is highly recommended by anyone. below are some photos i took for our group.

first photo concept by marc anthony polican.



second photo concept by gary mart domingo.



and lastly by me!



all photos were taken and owned by kenneth yu chan ©2007.