After Sunday's impromptu session with Joe McNally it was almost like I had already received my $50 worth of instruction without going to the Tuesday night presentation and demonstration given by Joe. But there I was in the front row with some fellow Strobists enjoying a cracking slideshow, Joe's insights and war stories and then an hour of Joe trying to wrestle Nikon's SB900s into putting out enough light for a model session right on the stage.

The talk, hosted by the nice crew at Vancouver Photo Workshops, was very well attended with all of the downstairs auditorium at the MacMillan Space Center filled to capacity. The couple hundred photographers soon discovered how amiable, self-effacing and open McNally is -- we already knew that from meeting him on Sunday.

Although some may have come to see his demonstration, the real value for me was in hearing him talk about his career while going through a really wowza slideshow of his work for People magazine, Life, National Geographic and dozens of examples of the corporate work he took on during a hiatus from magazine jobs (he's now back with National Geographic). Before his slideshow started, just peeking at the frames he had queued up on his PowerBook made me realize just how many photos I'd seen of his that I didn't realize were his.

The wonderful portrait series of the recreation of the Neanderthal woman for the September Nat Geo had stunned me when I had the magazine; then hearing a hilarious story of how they had shot the model (who is nearly naked) on an unauthorized shoot in a Spanish park and then had been surprised by park rangers got the whole audience rolling. A few of the stories he told are already in "The Moment it Clicks" and many of the frames we were shown will be in an upcoming book on lighting with small strobes.

Sunday's impromptu workshop

On Sunday, Joe had put together a motivated light workshop for a dozen of us Strobists. Our location was a storefront studio (a former boutique). Joe quickly sized up the location and then imagined a scenario for the picture in which our model Cindy was a proprietor of a store just waiting for business (or bemoaning the lack of business, something Joe cracked was familiar to any working photographer). He then placed two SB900s on stands outside the store window, aiming through the glass at the model as she stared wistfully outside. Then, to simulate afternoon light (it was morning on a cloudy Vancouver day), Joe gelled them with CTO (color temperature orange) gels. He got a wonderful effect by angling the speedlights so that they would bring out the shadows of the grillwork in the window bars and, in a second shot, bringing out the lettering in the store hours stencilling. He further softened the light with a light panel for more diffusion. You can see the results in the lower part of Joe's post here.

Props to David Hobby and the Strobists

Although we were all there to see Joe it was nice that Joe also gave a shout out to those of us he met Sunday and also gave props to David Hobby, who began the Strobist movement.

Tuesday's demonstration

Tuesday's demonstration had some hiccups. Although Joe was ably assisted by people from the Vancouver Photo Workshops, his latter attempt to get four Nikon speedlights to work in a complicated CLS triggering scheme didn't end with the complete result. Not that any of us could have done better under the pressure of an audience; adding just one more light seemed to put it past the CLS' capabilities. I was flanked by Nikon users Ian and Steve who blamed weak batteries. I've been there too many times and, from Joe's stories, he's been there countless times. As he said on more than one occasion: his prime attribute is being tenacious.

Although a lot of what Joe was doing is familar to Strobist-followers, there was some real value in seeing a seasoned pro work with assistants and the model and in hearing him voice his thoughts, justifying what he was doing and also hearing how he learns from mistakes or tests.

His earlier demonstration with an Elinchrom "Deep Throat" Octabox in concert with two or three speedlights went off a lot better. I liked his use of reflectors (big circular and tri-grip) to create a flattering glamour portrait of the model and also noted how he tilted the Octa so that he hit the model with the edge (preventing it from spilling onto her hair).

Next year?

Joe's visit to Vancouver was mostly for an intensive five-day workshop at a pricey $2,000 but from my introduction to Joe as a teacher and as a person, I'm going to seriously think about doing this next year when he returns.