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The Minimalist Cave Photographer Course
Simply reach the description in each level, watch the videos, then complete the assignments. BE SURE YOU COMPLETE THE ASSIGNMENTS. You are not going to learn if you don’t apply the knowledge you gain in each video.
Resources for the course are at the bottom of this page.
Level 01
Equipment & Exposure Mastery
Now that you’ve learned about creating a good exposure underground it’s time to apply what you’ve learned. Don’t worry about creating an amazing image. Right now we are just trying create a picture that is not too light and not too dark, but just right.
I want you to go underground. You could always try this in a dark basement or in a forest outside at night, but why would you want to do that? You’re a caver for goodness sake. Anyway, I want you to experiment with what we learned in this lesson by setting up the shots listed below and adjusting; first, the aperture to see what happens; then the ISO; then the flash intensity; and finally the flash distance. Then adjust all four to come up with the best shot.
Level 02
Light Direction Mastery
Now that you have mastered exposure it’s time to start unlocking your potential. In this assignment you are going to play with lighting direction with a single light source. The most important thing you can do to improve your cave photography is get that flash off your camera. Once you have it off though the secret is knowing what to do with it. It this assignment you will play with lighting direction to see what effect the light has on your photograph coming from different directions.
level 03
Mastering Shadows
Now that you have played with a single light coming from a single direction, it’s time to figure out how to fill in those shadows that are completely void of detail. In this level we’ll learn how to leverage fill light to bring your photographs to the next level.
level 04
Mastering Multiple Lights
Now it is time to take everything you’ve learned so far and put it together to create some really great cave shots. As you do this beware of some of the potential problems we’ve talked about like halos and double images. See how creative you can be in doing more with less. While it is always nice to have access to more helpers and more lights, it is equally nice to know how to make due with what you have, so that when you don’t have everything you would like or your equipment fails you can still walk away with a killer shot.
level 05
Colored Lights & Light Painting
This level is about having fun with light. I want you to try exploring colored lights and light painting. You may discover that sometimes it is just as important to document the feel of a cave as it is to document what it looks like and often adding some color and funky lighting can help you achieve that better than daylight balanced lights. Plus, the cool thing about light painting is that every shot will be completely unique because it is impossible to reproduce the same lighting twice.
level 06
Compositing
Today is the day you pull it all together and break through the limitations of your equipment. Whatever your limits have been in the past with either having enough light to illuminating a room that seems too big for your equipment, or having enough lights to get the effect you are after, in this assignment you will leverage the power of compositing to overcome those limits.
resources
Course Resources
Download these resources that are mentioned above and used them throughout the course.
don’t forget to
Share Your Results
I would LOVE to see what you produce. You can share those with me on Instagram or Facebook.