LightenUpAndShoot In Hong Kong

Flash photography (using flashes and other artificial lights) has been a thorn in my side for some time now. On the one hand a lot of the images I find most appealing are produced with flash photography. On the other hand, getting into flash photography can be expensive and time consuming.

And, it’s technically challenging, especially if you want to combine artificial light with natural light. I read a few books, tried some things out, but still found myself struggling.

So when I saw that Andy and Mikey from lightenupandshoot.com were coming to Hong Kong to do a workshop, I jumped at the opportunity. These guys have created quite a buzz with their blog, tutorials and no-nonsense approach to street-side flash photography.

The workshop was held over two days in Aberdeen, on the south side of Hong Kong Island. This is an industrial area, which afforded us a lot of dramatic backgrounds. We photographed models, we photographed people we met on the street and we photographed each other. We took a lot of photos!

There was also some classroom time, at the start and end of the workshop. I won’t steal their thunder, but Andy and Mikey have a great way of explaining how to adjust camera and flash settings to make images work when combing artifical and natural light. In fact, I hope they turn their approach into an iPhone app someday!

I’d like to extend a big thank you to Andy and Mikey for the patience and knowledge. It was fun to create photos with them. Big thank you also to Geoff from Factphotography for organsing the workshop, to the sponsers, Black Rapid and Phottix (who both make gear I love to use), the models Amanda, Elena, Kristy, Nathalie and Bea who were so patient with us and the rest of the participants, who all took great photos (you can see more images from everyone over at lightenupandshoot).