Rolando Gomez: The Art of Lighting for Impact

I hopped in the Bimmer today and cruised down to Samy's Camera, in L.A. I wanted to catch Rolando Gomez who was in town to host a seminar, "The Art of Lighting for Impact."

Rolando is a long-time pro photographer, author, speaker, workshop promoter, and founder of the Glamour1 Forum. I've been a member of G1 for a number of years (first joining when it was called "Garage Glamour") and, although I've never met Rolando until today, we've exchanged emails and have spoken on the phone once or twice. So, my primary reason for attending today's mini-workshop was to meet RG in person.

I figured the seminar's attendance would be a bit lean since it coincided with the Super Bowl but I was wrong: Almost every chair was filled and, for the room Samy's put aside for this event, that meant 50 or 60 people. RG also conducted two seminars at Samy's the previous day and he told me they were both sold-out.

Rolando's workshop at Samy's only cost $20 and I must tell you, $20 for the amount of info RG shared with the attendees was a steal! His presentation was thoroughly organized, included great visual aids, and covered a wide-range of subjects mostly aimed at the novice to intermediate photographer who is hoping to begin making some money, or make more money, from their photography. Rolando is knowledgeable and his presentaton style casual yet effective.

The seminar was titled, "The Art of Lighting for Impact," but Gomez covered a lot more than lighting. In his presentation, he offered a bunch of great tips and info, especially for shooters hoping to expand into private glamour (boudoir) photography. As I'm one of those who, in addition to what I'm already doing, is looking to get into that end of things, I was delighted to hear some of the great tips RG offered on the subject of building a client base.

Something that Gomez often hit-on in his presentation--which is something I've written about, numerous times, here on the blog--is the need to gain rapport and communicate with the model or subject. It's not just about skill and gear and creativity, it's about rapport and communication.

Another subject Gomez stressed was the importance of good lighting gear. According to Rolando, your equipment budget should put lighting at the top of the list, glass next, and the camera body itself, last. I've touched on this myself a few times and I couldn't agree with him more.

Rolando also discussed minimizing the shooter's reliance on image editors, the need to do things right while in production, production work-flow, and he presented a number of white-balance and color temperature techniques that any shooter can easily add to their personal bag of tricks. Being a long-term videographer, I'm always amused at the applicaton of (what traditionally has been) video-related, color-temperature, manipulations that now work so well with digital photography. No offense to the new generation of digital still shooters but we've been doing these things with video for decades.

In all, I was quite happy I decided to take the time to attend this 3-hour presentation: Not only for the opportunity to meet RG but to witness his style as a speaker and trainer and to benefit from the information he presented. I understand Gomez will be returning to L.A. in a few months to conduct more workshops in concert with Samy's. I highly recommend attendance for those who live in the L.A. area and are interested in expanding their knowledge base.

The sexy lady in the out-take pic at the top is Playboy and Penthouse covergirl, Tera Patrick. I shot Tera a few months ago and I'm supposed to be shooting her again next week. I'm also tagged for shooting the catalogue for Tera's new, signature, lingerie line she'll be debuting this coming year. Lucky me, huh?