Masterclasses: Light, Portraiture and Inspiration

Jerry Ghionis's PhotoPlus Expo 2018 talk traces 25 years from a Mamiya RB67 and 18,000-dollar Kodak DCS 760 to the Nikon Z 7, praising focus-point coverage and the FTZ adapter for old lenses. Gear, he argues, brings efficiency rather than talent, and others' Instagram feeds show only their best.

Jerry Ghionis's Nikon stage talk likens light to water: a showerhead, hose or fire hose whose pressure explains highlights and shadows. He defines good light as flattering or storytelling, shows sunlight ricocheting off a groom onto a bride and describes a diffuser as a strainer softening the sun.

Jerry Ghionis and Joe McNally compare notes in a Nikon broadcast from WPPI about photographing each other with the NIKKOR Z 85mm in Los Angeles: nerves and admiration, how each imagined representing the other, McNally wearing Ghionis's wardrobe, and Ghionis casting him as a director on a painted-backdrop set.

Jerry Ghionis poses and lights a full-length female subject: toe towards camera, heel back, knee bent, chest forward and back arched, then body turned away from the light and face turned back into it, the opposite of a male pose, before using a dark canvas backdrop to shape facial shadows.

Daniel Norton works with one Profoto B10 on a tethered Nikon Z6 II with 24-70mm, photographing Marissa for Adorama's OnSet. He kills ambient at 1/200s, ISO 100 and f/5.6 to set a black frame, then builds studio-style and environmental portraits with modifiers, a hair light and a mirror as fill.

Jerry Ghionis photographs Journey in his studio in beauty, editorial and 80s glam looks, starting with garage-door daylight bounced off a wall. He explains his five steps, light, location, pose, technique, emotion, cuts light with a Westcott Scrim Jim and poses with shoulders back and elbows off the body.

Scott Kelby's B&H Depth of Field talk covers ten topics for better portraits: a style guide, connection, light, responsible retouching, colour and skin tone, the eyes, background, lens selection, emotion and expression, and composition, arguing portraiture is one part technical and three parts art, and retouching details stay private.