Portraits – Indoors and Outside!

One thing that is a constant about workshops I am a part of is portraiture. There are many disciplines in photography, but one that has relentlessly drawn my eye is the human visage, the “face in a place” as I often refer to it. We always do a fair bit of walking and shooting, out of the streets, or at an overlook, just to include the beauty of a place and, especially in the cities, the hustle and bustle of a wonderful metropolis.

But the people. Endlessly fascinating faces and stories abound. In our recent excursion to Ireland, which was a rollicking good time indeed, we encountered beautiful, amazing, gregarious, welcoming folks, and naturally put our cameras to our eyes. And lights out on the floor. Lessons in composition, relating to a subject, lighting that fits the scene. Had a blast teaching with my dear friend and fellow Nikon Ambassador Tamara Lackey.

A face in a place is a good way to tell a story, especially when you intermingle a stirring portrait or two with the lovely details of, say, the legendary Jameson’s Distillery in downtown Dublin. Profoto at work! B10 Plus X unit with an Octa up front, and various A2 and A10 units dispersed about the bar. All with the aim of conveying the warmth and conviviality of the place.

With our group of wonderful photographers, we ventured to Dingle then northwest to Galway! One of my favorite Irish tunes is Teir Abhaile Riu, which is all about a Galway lass returning to her town in search of a sailor to dance with, or perhaps to make a match with the piper. Such exuberant music gets your foot tapping and your camera clicking. We made arrangements for lovely, talented Irish dancers to grace our class with their formidable talents, as we learned to apply flash and reflectors and define the cloudy day with light.

Light applied means control of the scene and that gray Irish sky. Instead of dead white, when you push light at your subject, you leverage a tonality out of the potentially nondescript. And when you wrangle definition out of a sky like this, you achieve the potential for drame, especially in monochrome.

The new Profoto tools are amazing. One clic lighting is the name I have for their new generation of softboxes. Instead of wrestling the rods on a octopus of a light shaper, just pull it on, clic it open and magnetize that puppy to the light.

We found an old boat and, well, because they are dancers, possessed of formidable physical skills, they were naturally comfortable posing on it. With Sarah below, I put another light, gelled, behind her amazing head of hair to demonstrate the fact of bringing the principles of the studio out on location. Control of light allows you to impart a difference, an inflection of additional detail that could draw the eye of the viewer more readily than a snap in the street.

Many thanks all around for such a fun, memorable trip with our talented group of photographers and those who helped! Fantastic to work again with friends and fellow photographers Ronin Palliser and Sean McCormack. Big thanks to Profoto for loaner lighting gear for our teams, and the wonderful portrait subjects and dancers in Galway (Ronan, Anne Marie, Laoise, and Sarah and a big shout-out to the wonderful Siobhan at the Irish Dance Experience!

Such was Ireland. Beautiful scenes and settings, intermingled with photo sessions with expressive, beautiful people. Looking forward to more faces-in-places and teaching with Tamara next month in Tuscany! Then since we sold out 2024 fast and had quite a waitlist, just opened up October in Tuscany 2025….

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