This year I have decided that I need to grow, we all need to grow, but for me, my goal in 2015 is to get comfortable using off camera flash and light modifiers. While this is my personal goal I encourage all of you to set one for yourselves as well. It should be attainable so that you can hold yourself to it and truly grow, whether on a personal or professional level.

In order to make sure I hold myself to this goal I created a 52 week challenge of lighting themes. To make matters more uncomfortable I created a Facebook group for the challenge and invited others to play along. Eek! This means that not only do I have to keep up with my challenge but I have to lead the group and post weekly themes for others to grow as well. While it’s scary to share my growth (and potential failures) with others it also holds me accountable, inspires me and opens me up to learn from others around me.

Periodically I will share my challenge with all of you and I encourage you to share yours with me, no matter the subject! This way, we can help each other.

Week 1: Natural Light

The goal of this challenge was to use only natural light, no flash, overhead or lamps. Take what mother nature has provided us and work with it. I love bright whites so for me it was a no brainer to use a white backdrop and light clothing to brighten my scene. I did have to lighten up the hair a touch as it was blending too much into the black back ground but other than that this was fun and a simpler exercise for me.

Week 2: Directional Lighting

Unlike week 1, this was new for me and not quite as simple. Creating an image with a purposefully harsh contrast of light and dark and doing it with off camera flash and not in Photoshop. This moody type of photography is exciting and I can’t wait to use it for more intriguing portraits, any takers?