Tom Jackson Revisits

Tom jackson (sigh at those blue eyes) came to visit again, he was running a lighting studio workshop and basically gave us these great tips of what to work with when you have nothing to work with! 

1. For the first set up it was a basic one light set up, I held a white piece of polystyrene as a reflector to fill in the shadows showing that you can utilize the environment around you. 
2. We then chose an image by Terry Richardson and tried to get the same lighting effect as he achieved. The set up creates a harsh light as we used a light has no hood on, if you want to make it more subtle you can drop the stop by one or two points. 
3. We then recreated a lighting style by David Simms which is a far softer light, experimenting with the getting the background black and grey as well made for some interesting shots. For this we bounced the light off the ceiling, we exposed for f11 but dropped it down to 8.5 to create a softer light. 
4. Next we were aiming to create an image with a black background so we brought Georgia, our model for this image, further away from the backdrop so the light would natural drop away not lighting up the background making it darker. Another way to get a darker background is to semi close the umbrella. 
5. Our last lighting style was experimenting with fill light, we used a silver umbrella to create a soft filling light to the darker side of the face. 

Guest Lecture: Tom Jackson

Tom Jackson is an editorial portrait photographer. After studying Editorial Photography in Brighton, Jackson moved to London and assisted photographers such as Rankin, David Sims and Jane Hilton. During his time assisting, he realised that what he was interested in photographing were people’s faces and characterful people.

His first solo commission was the WWF wrestlers for Times Magazine. This led to him being a regular photographer for the magazine. He says that the supplements are a great way to get into the industry. You get your work published, gain access to high-profile people and it gives you links to advertising agencies.

Jackson does a lot of personal projects that are then used in newspapers and magazines and leads to further work. Jackson says that agencies love to see personal work. They want to see your published work but what they will book you on is usually based on your personal work.

Key pieces of advice:

• Assist -> supplements -> more published work
• You don't need a studio
• Published work leads to more work
• They like to see your PERSONAL work
• two studio lights, the background can be a reflector!
• Plan ahead- do reccy's
• Join a photography agency!