My best Duncan Keith impersonation, captured by students

Lyndon's photos from class

One of the real joys of teaching is seeing what your students can do. Lyndon sent me a few from the basic portrait class, and I wanted to show off these two because they illustrate fantastic ways of dealing with problems that, as a photographer, you’re going to run into again and again.

On the left, you have me, doing a fantastic impression of Duncan Keith, if I do say so myself. But more importantly, it’s got me in a white shirt.  White-on-white is hard to deal with, and the best approach is to make sure that your model and your background are separated, so that you can light them individually. Lyndon did a fantastic job of that here.

The second photo just goes to show you that the photographer’s life is all about balance. Dennis is doing a fantastic job of balancing Daruma there. He’s also illustrating the importance of angling glasses so that there isn’t an ugly reflection in them when you take the photo. Again, you can see the separation of background and model, as Dennis is wonderfully lit, and the background is black.

I want to say a big thanks to all of my students, and everyone, especially Alfie at Japanorama, who’ve made my classes a success.