Peter Coulson

We traveled up to sydney for a day trip to the Peter Coulson lighting workshop at Sun Studios.

Peter Coulson is the current AIPP photographer of the year and the workshop really showed us why he is is.

He started off showing us how he usually lights is images
He showed us how he does everything using 1 light and he was getting amazing results, this is something all of our teachers have been telling us to do for the past 2 years. Stripping everything back to basics using only one light can go a long way.

He also showed us how to use harsh lighting to its best by using bar bulbs on the flashes using only 2 light and getting very amazing results playing with the shadows. Also showed us how to use direct sunlight in the middle of the day very harsh shadows and still got amazing results. Its all about really looking close at where the light is hitting.

I was a bit worried when is said he shoots auto white balance though, but he did corrected it in lightroom while shooting tethered which didn't matter at all once it was in being corrected on the spot.

We also went through lighting a corporate portrait to a high standard using more lights. the best technique i got out of this was the backlighting check by shooting the backlights without the front lights to check exactly where it is hitting, very simple but very effective.


All of his shoots he used butterfly lighting which looked great.

Dan O Day

Dan o Day is an amazing fine art photographer, he has a great knowledge of the fine art industry such as galleries and artists.

Dan gave me heaps of inspiration to enter some photo competitions, i am now going out and finding lots of photo comps i am about to enter as i have NEVER! entered any photo competitions out of cit. I am currently deciding out of all my images which ones i will enter into numerous competitions.

Dan shoots everything on medium format film, much respect for this as most his work looks really photoshopped.

Dan is also a great wedding photographer and actually made me want to shoot some weddings, some of dans award winning photos are from when he is very tried could have left the shoot but went that extra mile to get the shots he wanted on top of what the client wanted.

He also talked about adding to your CV, I really need to do this as it is already started to get to big to remember everything.

Gavin Blue

Gavin blue's workshop was a great hands on experience i leant a few great techniques to using speedlites such as high speed sync. This is something that would have helped me so much with some of my shoots which the flash was not strong enough. I am currently working on building my strobist speedlites kit and after seeing Gavin's kit i believe i am on a good path to having a strong professional speedlites kit. I actually have just bought some of the triggers that gavin uses, they are amazing and i would even know about them unless i gavin showed us.

I got alot of good inspiration and knowledge out of the hands on part of the workshop with gavin, mostly knowing that his lighting setups and his way of thinking about how he shoots his subjects is very similar to mine but in a much more experienced more professional way which i will hopefully get there in the future.

Also gavins way of marketing himself online is very cleaver, by having multiple websites and free pages such as Facebook and twitter. It is a very good way to specialise is many different areas and still seem like he is a dedicated photographer for only that area. eg Gavins truck photography site and corporate portrait site.

Also i have gone out now and tried using gels on my flashes to get that gavin blue signature backgrounds, it works great!

Alexia Sinclair

We had an amazing chance to have this workshop with Alexia Sinclair who is an amazing digital artist. I was very inspired by how she plans her photos and the amount of effort for each single photo. This is why her imagery is so amazing and a step above most other photographers. She showed us some of her main influences and why she likes these artists, this gave me such inspiration seeing how she takes what she's likes and makes it her own inside her personal work. This is something i have really started to try and do with my own work. I have started finding photographers i think are amazing breaking down their images till i find out what i like about their work then trying to portray some of these techniques in my own work. Also knowing how much time is spent on retouch make me rethink all over my images and now i go back and completely reedit all my photos till i think they are ready.