The OneLight Workshop

I had the chance to attend the OneLight workshop with Zack Arias's this past Thursday. It was a great learning experience. I typically am a natural light photographer and while I learned lighting in college, I rarely use it. Zack explains everything as simple as possible and shows you how it's done.

On Wednesday night there was a mixer open to the local photography community that I attended. It was great to me some other local photographers who were not participating in the workshop. We got the chance to talk with Zack and also learn a little more about his background.

Thursday's workshop started at 9:30 am and went past midnight! But, we all knew we were looking at a long day before we even started. The first half of the day Zack shared his knowledge, reviewed the basics of lighting with off camera flash and gave us suggestions for the gear to get the job done. The best part, Zack is totally into staying out of debt and has come up with extremely inexpensive options for working with off camera flash. Later in the afternoon we broke into 3 small groups and worked with our models to see what different types of looks we could achieve with our one light setup. God bless our models, we made our way outside into the Ohio cold as the sun was setting to work more with the one light setup. Once back inside, Zack reviewed any problems we were having and broke it down even further for us.

If you've thought about using off camera flash or working with one light and you haven't in the past, this class is a must. If you're like me and you know about lighting, but you just aren't sure how to use it when you're photographing on location, it's a must for you too. There was a variety of photographers at this workshop - about half wedding and the other half portrait. The skill levels and knowledge varied a bit from photographer to photographer. I think most of the class was extremely pleased with what they learned. The class was $800 and I thought it was worth every penny I paid. Just keep in mind that this isn't going to answer all your lighting questions and I know I have to continue to work on my off camera flash lighting to make it work best for my clients and their needs. But OneLight has been a great springboard for me to push myself into a different aspect of working with light and continuing my education!