On Saturday, February 16, 2019, BUFF Ambassador Jeff Carpenter of Readylight Media, taught his first workshop in his NEXT LEVEL series to attendees at Westlight Studios in Franklin, TN. Carpenter’s “Next Level Lighting” workshop was geared to photographers at all skill levels. Focusing on various lighting techniques, and thinking outside the softbox, the two-day course covered everything from single light setups, getting creative with gels, business and marketing concepts, and photo retouching.
We chatted with Jeff to find out a bit more about the new series and how it came about.
What prompted your decision to host a workshop?
I’ve been sharing behind the scenes content on my Instagram and YouTube for quite some time, and I had a lot of people ask me if I taught workshops. Although I’ve taught a few workshops in the past, and some 1 one 1 classes with photographers, I really wanted to create a workshop that not only allowed attendees to create a lot of portfolio worthy content, but also provided the fundamentals of lighting that they could apply to their own style of shooting.
What do you find to be the most beneficial aspect of the content you provide?
As a self taught photographer, I was always searching for different ways to learn and one thing I found lacking was resources that broke down the basics in a way that was easy to understand. I think understanding the fundamentals of lighting is so important so my goal for this workshop was to start simple and work up to more complicated lighting setups that incorporated everything we learned throughout the day. Sure, it was a long day but I think everyone enjoyed themselves and learned a lot.
What do you hope to cover in the future as your workshop series expands?
In future workshops I really hope to cover more on posing and cover more lighting setups. We covered a lot in the 2 days we were together, but I really want to make sure everyone who attends gets the most out of their experience.
What did you find to be the best part of getting the first workshop of the NEXT LEVEL series under your belt?
This workshop series is something that I had been working on for quite some time and I couldn’t be happier to have the first one under my belt. The great thing about having this one out of the way is that the hard part of putting the curriculum together and working on the front end is done. Now I can recreate this workshop really easily and take it on the road!
PHOTOS FROM THE ATTENDEES
Workshop attendees include (in no particular order):
Doug Littlejohn, John Aspey, Zuri Richards, Keith Harney, Melissa Joy Passons, Chris Ponciano, Collin Hadley, Kyle Okita, Maurice Lewis, Tim Garland, Laura S. Keller, Jon Gugala, and Suzette Rayford
Carpenter will continue his NEXT LEVEL workshop series throughout 2019 with dates and locations to be announced soon. Be sure to sign-up for his mailing list over on Outside the Softbox to be notified of upcoming events.
SPECIAL THANKS TO:
MODELS – Allee-Sutton Hethcoat | Hunter Hethcoat
MAKEUP – Chelsea Reynolds
ASSISTANTS – Tommy Mattox
VIDEOGRAPHER – Red Baron Digital
BUSINESS MANAGER: Shelby Garriga Carpenter
SPONSORS:
Paul C. Buff, Inc.
Savage Universal
V-Flat World
Sigma Photo
Lens Rentals
SanDisk
MeFoto Tripods
Elixxier Software
Westlight Studios
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