This past weekend I held my latest Creative Portrait workshop at my Columbus studio. We kicked off the weekend exploring color theory and shadow sculpting, with dancer Rae as our muse.

In the second half of day one I taught my students how to work with reeded plastic and mylar. Mylar, in particular, is wildly versatile, as is demonstrated by the three different ways I used it:
- I used it as a background and shot with a slow shutter speed and a strobe to get a blurry background but sharp subject.
- I covered it with color gels and bounced light into it to create dappled, colored light (with and without shutter drag).

On day two I started off by demonstrating how to mix continuous light with strobes and a slow shutter speed to capture motion streaks in portraits.

After that we dove headfirst into working with projectors in three different ways:

• We made or sourced custom images to project onto the subject, background, or both.

• We used the projector with strobes and a slow shutter speed to capture motion while preserving sharpness in the subject.

• We projected through a fog machine to create colorful, dynamic shadow and light.

After lunch we explored using prismatic window film as a flag, as a warped reflective surface, and as a colorful, shoot-through material.

At the end of the day we blacked out the room and played with light painting, using 4-foot Pavotubes to paint the background and subject.

A big thanks to all my students for making the trip to Ohio. MVP goes to @cstuyt for driving down from Vancouver