I recently was hanging out with the Professional Photographers of Canada-Alberta here in the Riviera Maya and was speaking on my photojournalism ideals and giving a quick demo of using low lighting conditions and accenting a subject with flash / video light and using color correction gels.  Sol accompanied and helped assist us on the beach with the demo.  She also provided well needed moral support for her rambling husband... gracias Sol!

Thanks PPOCA for your hospitality.   The Cava Brothers also spoke for this crew.  Do take a spin around their website...commercial section is way tight...their pretty much spot on in all genres and give workshops of their awesome craft!

We had a short talk and a demo session and a hotel party session afterwards with a few tequilas and some good times!   I met many very talented and successful photographers from Canada and we all were able to share and learn / ask questions together.  Everybody was very positive and the learning environment . Thanks for the hang time amigos!

*Special thanks to Kim & Lynn at Studio 9 Photographers for helping organize this and their assistant for volunteering to model for us, GRACIAS!

**Disclaimer**  I have been posting wedding related content / engagement content on FF up to this point.  I still plan on doing so.... If I have material that I'm teaching, its just easier to post it here :)  My apologies about the drift in content...

My demo emphasized a very LIGHT equipment load, enough to fit in a tiny Canon 200 EG backpack and work some model lighting on the FLY, at the dusk hours...

Using low power strobe and shooting JPG on the 5d Mark II, we gelled the flash tungsten 1/2 CTO, and switched our white balance to tungsten.  The two cancel out each other on the skin tone but the sky goes BLUE crazy.   Results may very in different atmospheric conditions or with different gel brands and different amounts of CTO...there is  no real right answer.   We also shot a LOT with a flash not gelled and camera set to AWB.  Remote flash units triggered using Pocket Wizards.

Photo on left: 2 flash units. Model 1/4 power,light not gelled, Camera AWB, back flash gelled 1/1 CTO, 1/2 power.

Photo on right side shot with1 flash unit,1/32 power with subject walking.  Camera set to AWB.  No gel on flash.

Auto white balance handles the color of the background very well, going with the warm look.  On the right, 1/2CTO gel on flash, camera WB set to Tungsten.  Blue Sky Effect.

Video light from the front (1/2 CTB gel) , Background flash (no gel) set to 1/4 power. Camera set to AWB.  Flash gives a sculpting keylight on hair and the edge of her body... ISO 320 1/200th 2.5

Video light (1/2CTB Gel) coming from Camera Right to light model.  Flash (no gel) set on 1/32 power, triggered from 9-11 feet from the model.  ISO 320  1/100th 1.4.

SALUDOS!

Cheers & thanks again for hanging out..
matt