ahTour 2017 – Cortiiana Hotel Munich

2017-08-16 Peoplephotography
AHTour 2017 München

In this post, I will report from my latest workshop participation in Munich. Photographer Alexander Heinrichs offered this workshop as part of his ahTour 2017. Within the tour, he is traveling with two awesome models from city to city and keeps several workshops. The workshop took place in the Cortiiana Hotel, directly in the centre of Munich. We had two rooms were we have practised on-location lighting. Our models where Madeleine Handle and Franzy Balfanz. Both are very experianced models.

One other participant was my friend Andrea Feicht. We both booked the workshop independently but it was great to attend it together. Andrea is an excelent photographer and working with her was a lot of fun. Furthermore, there were a few participants that I have meet at Foto-Video-Sauter before. Alltogether, we had a very pleasant group.

The workshop started with a theory introduction. Alexander teached us to first adjust the exposure settings of our cameras to the available light. In this context, available light means light from the windows or the lamp in the room. In a second step a flash, steady-light or reflector is used to get the correct illumination of the model. If the illumination of the location is incorret, adjust your camera settings. If the illumination of the model is incorrect, adjust the flash, steady-light or reflector. On two example pictures, he showed us how one can create a very natural or more mystic look just by using exposure settings for adjusting illumination of the location and flash settings for adjusting illumination of the model.

Alexander also introduced us to the lighting equipment he is using: flashes, steady-lights and this kind of stuff. But as a professional photographer he is using a lot of equipment that is far away from my budget as hobby photographer. However, it was nice to see the stuff first hand.

After the theory session, we started practicing. We shoot four sets. Two sets with Madeleine and who with Franzy. One set with flash, one with an LED panel, one with an LED steady-light and the last one with the reflector. Each photographer had 8 minutes per set. The time sounds short but guaranteed a fair time-share between the participants.

While shooting, I gave my iPad to Andrea and transferred the pictures to the iPad while shooting (EyeFi card). After a few shoots, Andrea gave me the hint that my exposure was to dark and Madeleine told me to shoot brighter with Canon cameras. With Canon cameras, artefacts seem to apper if you raise exposure in post-production. But Canon must be very good in handling bright parts in the picture. The opposide must be the case with Nikon and Sony cameras. They must be shoot darker. If there is the chance, I must do some test shoots with both and compare the output. Anyway, I never got such a valuable tipp from a model before. Madeleine, you’re great!

At the end of the day, I learned a lot, meet great people and had much fun. Great workshop and a clear recommendation.