Pico’s Pictures: Lighting without Fear Bootcamp

4 min readNov 12, 2024

Learning skills with an expert instructor is worth the investment. I participated in the “Lighting without Fear Bootcamp” instructed by Erik from Holladay Photography and hosted by Emina at the MI Studio Space. This class had lecture, demonstrations, problem solving by example, open questions and answers, and a lot of assisted practice time. Topics included: f-stop relationships, lighting guides, equipment (diffusers, light boxes, octoboxes, grid umbrellas, beauty lights) and their effects, and color temperature.

Overall, I had a ton of fun and would recommend this class. I learned new things, and got a lot of hands on instruction. I appreciated being able to try some different equipment and tools; tips on budget friendly items that can be used; and having access to the studio and models which made for some really nice photos. If you have a small group that would like to take the class Erik & Emina will setup a special session upon request.

First Practice: Settings & Lighting Guides

In the first practice session the focus was setting up the position of the flash and adjusting camera settings to get a correct exposure. Additionally, I tried some of the different positions to get shadow effects on the models based on the lighting guide. My flash had a simple slip over diffuser. The thing I learned was that once your flash is in position you can pretty much move wherever you want to take your photo and the lighting stays stable. Also, I learned that my camera preview lies to me. When I post-processed the images they were two stops underexposed. The camera read-out told me that, but the image preview looked like it was good. Technically, I want to underexpose a little bit so I don’t unintentionally blow-out the highlights and lose information in the photo.

Molly helping me get some dynamic shadows

Emina helped me get a nice backlight effect with Ashley.

Second Practice: Other Equipment & Color Temperature

After we ate lunch at the restaurant below the studio, we headed back upstairs to discuss color temperature, try some experiments, and use different equipment.

Molly was captured by first setting the color temperature in camera to move the background colors into a warm color. The flash was equipped with a blue color gel to only allow through the blue light which combined with the camera’s color temperature change makes a nice natural white color on Molly’s face while keeping the background warm. Finally, the flash had a double grid attached which limited the light giving a spotlight effect. (Things get complicated quick!)

If you look into the reflection of Ashley’s sunglasses you can see the grid on the umbrella diffuser. You may have noticed the multiple backgrounds. The studio has many unique places and props to incorporate.

Lessons Learned

Don’t trust my camera preview! The gauges are correct and I need to monitor those. Let the model know their boundaries for movement. If the light is a small area then they need to know where the boundaries are. The same thing goes if you’re capturing tight portraits versus full body shots. My list of prompts seemed to go over well and we had a ton of fun making faces which led to capturing real emotions.