A Photo Class at O'Keefe Ranch

I get allergies in the summer. Here in Vernon, we have those hot 32 degree summer days, with those nice cool 22 degree nights. The kind of night that makes you want to sit outside on the deck while you edit your photos. Better bring your laptop.

The folks at O’Keefe Ranch were nice enough to let us take photos in the grounds. None of the houses were open, but we still enjoyed saying hello to the horses. In exchange, we have to provide them with a few photos of the grounds they can use for free. For the first half hour of our Level 3 Photography Class, we perused the grounds and took great photos.

A few of my students have new cameras too. I noticed a few d750’s and 6d’s and a Canon 5d Mk2. Great job guys! You know they’re passionate about photography when they start investing in expensive cameras. Photography is my love, and so it’s nice to see this spread.

First off, dim backflash to create a hairlight. This is a pretty easy setup. We’re really starting to get into multiple flashes. With the price of flashes these days, it’d be foolish not to have multiples.

Here’s a better example. We have a flash set up behind our adorable model, creating a hair light. It also changes the texture of the image, making for a more dynamic range of color and brightness.

A little note with hairlights – I realize using the sun as a hairlight is impossibly fun, but don’t make it your whole skillset. It should be just skill you’ve got in a bag of tricks. We don’t like to see an entire shoot with the sun as a hairlight, same as we don’t like to see a one trick pony. We teach you two or three different photography tricks every class so you’ve got a wide range to choose from.

Last off, we had our adorable little model run into the sprinkler. I, of course, followed.

There ya go! Hope you enjoyed this neato Draht Photography update! If you’d like to take some lessons, here’s the schedule for the upcoming bootcamps!