Pye Jirsa and CreativeLive are pleased to announce a LIVE Q&A with Pye Jirsa from SLR Lounge Q&A on March 22nd! Pye will be holding a 3 hour-long open-enrollment session based on the lessons taught in his Photography 101, Lighting 101, and Lighting 201 classes. The Q&A will also include an image critique, so bring the photos you’ve made while taking his classes for feedback and advice. Pye will be using live models to demonstrate his responses. Be sure to brush up on these classes ahead of time – check out this schedule to know when you can watch these classes again for FREE!
– 3/21 – Lighting 201
– 3/22 – Working with Flash & LIVE – Pye Jirsa Q&A
To contribute questions about Photography 101, Lighting 101, Lighting 201 or Engagement Photography, reach out by using the hashtag #PyeQA. If you have an image that you’d like critiqued during the event, submit it to SLR Lounge’s Constructive Critique and join us Tues 3/22 for the Q&A.
As a sneak peek, we were thrilled to sit down with Pye to get some advanced answers to student questions.
CreativeLive: What accessories would you recommend for a photographer who is just getting started?
Pye Jirsa: I’d say education is quite possibly the best accessory you can invest in. Your education and understanding of photography and lighting will be your biggest asset in helping you to create incredible images. For today, we are actually going to be teaching you how we create awesome images with just an on-camera flash, and a single off-camera light source. Someone with a strong education and understanding of these principles can create fantastic artwork with the most basic of gear. That being said, it would really depend a bit on the job you are intending to do. What type of photography do you want to do and do you want to do it professionally? The tools you invest in will make your life/job easier, but they won’t create great images on their own.
CL: Are you more of a capturer, or a creator?
PJ: I’d definitely say creator, I love to walk into a scene and shape it using posing, lighting and in-camera techniques to fit my vision.
CL: Where and how do you find your locations?
PJ: I love to explore. I drive around a lot when I have time, go on walks, just go shoot for fun, etc. I also have a fantastic network of photographer friends that are all over the world. So if I am ever in a pinch, I will often ask others for help. The photographic community is one of the best resources at your fingertips.
CL: Can you share what your approach is for working with other wedding vendors (florists/caterers)? Do you freely share files? Do you ask for compensation or links?
PJ: With vendors we freely share all of our images. In fact, we actually go a step beyond. The Lin and Jirsa website gets around 50,000 visitors a month, so with each blog entry and post, we do our best to always credit all the vendors that worked so hard to give us something amazing to shoot. So not only do we provide them images, we also credit and link back to them on our own site as well as throughout social media posts. I think we photographers often forget how much work goes into creating such amazing scenes, we come and take the shots and take all the credit, and we want to turn that around for our vendors. It’s something that has been fantastic for our business as well. So when we publish images featuring other vendors work we credit/link them, and we ask that they simply do the same when they use our images.
CL: Pye, you’ve created an amazing educational resource with SLR Lounge and low cost educational videos such as Lighting 101 and Lighting 201. Can you share with us what your initial approach is to a scene for a stylized shoot? Do you get there early and practice with your team or set up while your subjects are waiting?
PJ: I don’t think I ever know what I want before I start shooting. I have an idea, and I will create a mood board for a stylistic vision. But, once I get to the location and start working, it stays very fluid. What we show in our education isn’t practiced, it’s the entire process. So it shows us arriving, location scouting, planning, and going through the entire shoot from start to finish. There is no setup/practice prior to actually getting the real shot, and that is intended. Photography is real life problem solving, and we want to show that.
RSVP now for this free opportunity to hone what you’ve learned and clear up lingering questions about the fundamentals of using your digital camera, camera flashes, and the intricacies of posing.
