The portrait photography workshop is great fun and and you get to learn new techniques on lighting, posing, image constuction and also on building a rapport with your model. In this shoot we used a fabulous model Lola who is also a burlesque dancer, as you can see the dark coloured feather fans worked perfect. One of the techniques we worked-on in this workshop was how to use coloured gels to add atmosphere to a portrait. Often photograaphers will find they can’t get the colours to show up effectively as one light is ‘washing out’ the colours from another light.
The way around this is to make sure the power of each light is balanced correctly to allow each colour to generate it’s effect.
In this shot we used a blue and a red colour gelto skirt along the edges of each fan and where they mixed we managed to produce a lovely purple effect. The natural light on her face was provided by a tightly focused beam that overpowered the coloured ones in that particular spot.
Behind the scenes of a burlesque photoshoot