TheFlyingCamera

Well, we are off to a great start with the class. Some familiar faces, and some new ones - several of the women from the last class did not make it for this one, but Robert and Kathleen (husband and wife duo) came, and Phil, the tall, skinny guy also came. We did a slight recap of the last session of the Portrait 1 class, with a twist - we used the diffuse lighting setup for "butterfly" lighting from the solo portrait/headshot setup, but this time, we used it to light group portraits. Some folks experimented with multi-level, multi-row posings of the group, but I decided we were going to have some fun with it, and had everyone pose with their cameras, then I got them all to do a rather silly "Chorus Line" type pose. I think everyone had a blast with that one, despite the silliness of it, as the process of the group pose was giving all of us flashbacks to grade school class portraits. I'd post a shot but it was done with digital, so it isn't germane here.

We also got our first major assignment - interview another classmate and come up with a concept for a portrait, to include backgrounds and/or props to convey a sense of personality and identity. I got Kathleen, who I think is probably the most interesting member of the group, certainly the most spunky. She got into photography because she wanted originally to just do the darkroom stuff for her husband, but her darkroom instructor made her do her own shooting too. She's more of a charcoal/pastel/watercolor artist, and she loves doing macro work, so I'm thinking of taking her to the Botanical Gardens to do a portrait of her drawing something. I MIGHT do it with the 11x14, or maybe just with the whole plate camera.