I met Heidi Uhl at Skip’s Summer School last August.  She and her husband, Tim, are very involved in the industry, especially with DWF.   While together in Vegas, I had a chance to look at her portfolio.   One of the most fun things for me to do has always involved looking at portfolios.  I was simply blown away by the quality of her work.  Her images have a strong fashion look, with a lot of attention to lighting.  In fact, so much of it looked familiar and then I realized why – she’s combined the feel of the great fashion guys and mixed them up with her own Heidi Uhl sense of style and lighting.

I’ve been begging her to do a guest post for three months.  Finally, while at IUSA, I noticed her images on display in the Simply Canvas booth.  That’s all it took to beat her up one more time and here we are this morning.  The image for her guest post was blown up to a stunning 30×40 canvas and for those lighting junkies out there, she kept it simple with only one light and a snoot!  So, Ms Heidi – thanks for being here this morning – the blog is all yours!

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Let’s start with the obvious, here’s what I love about a snoot – I love the intense control.  The light literally goes only where I want it.  I  was shooting for a friend’s salon and doing images for a story about the different looks you get with different dresses and accessories.   I had a limited amount of time to shoot 150+ images and for this one I wanted drama.  I wanted it to have an edgy look without being too harsh.

The lights were ProPhoto, simply because I love their quality of light.  The snoot is one of my favorite lighting accessories and that day it did everything I wanted.  All of the other images that ran in editorial were in color, but this one screamed black and white.  (Actually if it were up to me, everything would have been done in black and white.)

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I really believe in making sure your lighting look matches the feel of the subject.  She had this classic old Hollywood look in what she was wearing, even her hair style and expression.  Inspired by Hurrell, Avedon, Penn and Scavullo I just wanted their influence to show in my images – sort of like the seasoning on a good steak.  

There’s no amount of reading or chasing things on the Internet that will give you the information to capture different looks in your lighting.  I’ve been a professional photographer for eight years and in the beginning I thought all I needed to do was read a lot and look at a lot of images – NOT!  The truth is you need to practice and keep experimenting and looking for just the right look.

I heard Roberto Valenzuela make a statement once:  “Practice doesn’t make perfect – perfect practice makes perfect!”  So, I had to practice getting the lighting the way I wanted it over and over again, until I knew my light sources and their capabilities the same way I knew my camera.  I had to practice and get it right first.  Then, when I’d get what I wanted I’d just practice some more!