Penultimate Peer Session

As the assignment deadline is drawing near, we began this session with a group review and discussion of everyone's ideas and latest work, towards the aim of helping each other along with our final pieces. I hope the session was beneficial, I for one was very encouraged to hear some excellent and inspiring ideas followed up by thoughtful questions and suggestions. The important thing now is that we really make a good effort at realising these ideas - don't be timid - if you've got something that you're passionate about then go for it. I'm keen that next week we will all have more images to show (even if they are just preliminary or research) so that we can get a stronger sense of where everyone is headed.

Following the review, I invited fellow second year student Joanna Ornowska to come and talk to us about some of her work. After the assignment to 'document a meeting' was set, Joanna's photography (in particular her Park Portraits series) came to mind. We asked about and discussed with Joanna her methods of approaching and directing strangers, her considerations of light and composition, and the technical challenges she dealt with. All of which was very insightful, and I hope useful to the group.

Her photography of strangers she meets is continuing - at the moment it's couples walking on Welsh mountains - and there is also her more personal and intimate project Awake, looking at her family life during and after her illness with hepatitis C and skin cancer. Joanna shows a great level of dedication to her projects, which is reflected in the quality of her pieces. Each time I see her work I am inspired to better my own.

For the remainder of the afternoon we had a flashgun workshop with Kevin, which I will endeavour to sum up here:

• The power of the flashguns can be stepped up or down by 3 stops (above or below the ambient exposure) so they can be used as a subtle fill light, your main light , or for an over-exposed effect. 
• The lights can be used on-board and off-board - mounted to light stands or tripods, using super clamps, magic arms, or just the foot, or you could even get an assistant to hold it. 
• They can be altered to send light in different manners - direct, bounced, diffused, or coloured using gels. 
• There are different ways of firing them remotely: using a radio trigger; using the 'SU 4' setting (similar to the 'cell' function on the studio heads); or using the flashguns' in built radio signals - which means setting one flash as the 'master' and the other(s) as 'remote' (remember that the master can be the camera's own flash). 
• Different models and brands will vary in settings and terminology, just to keep it confusing for us.
• You'll need to provide your own batteries (usually AA) and ideally they should be above 2000mAh (milli-amps). 

All of this might sound a bit techno mumbo jumbo, but as with any new equipment the best option would be to take it out and have a play. The crucial thing to remember is that these are just lights, apply the same principles as you would with studio lighting and don't over-complicate things. Again the Strobist blog is a useful resource, try the 102 lighting archive. And Kevin also mentioned the website of Ken Rockwell, who seems to know his camera equipment through and through and provides a review for just about anything.