Brett Jarnagin: SmugMug KC Meeting July 2011

Our first official SmugMug meeting in Kansas City was at a studio located in the West Bottoms in Kansas City, Missouri. It is the perfect place for on-location photographers. There are textured walls, brick covered in vines, walls covered in graffiti, and plenty of shade from all the tall buildings… I love shooting there!

Our speaker was Brett Jarnagin of Jarnagin Photography, a wedding and portrait photographer from Shelbyville, Illinois, who’s extremely talented in flash and lighting setup. He teaches Flashfire lighting workshops for photographers all over the United States and Mexico and is also the creator of Life. Camera. Actions.

He spoke about and demonstrated his different off-camera lighting setups as his beautiful wife, Casey, modeled for us. He has a very unique style that can transform a so-so location into some super dramatic. Here are a few pics from the SmugMug meeting.

Some of us also experimented with using the ring light, which made some pretty neat photos as it removes all of the shadow from the face, restricts your pupils so more of the color of your iris shows up (and therefore being rediculously bright) and puts a nice circle light around your pupil. Brett took pictures of everyone there to use as facebook profile pictures.

Here is a picture I took of my newly-engaged friend, and SmugMug group leader, Ria Liu in front of the ring light.

Brett Jarnagin put on a  full-day workshop (not an understatement… it was a full 12 hour day of intense learning) the day following the SmugMug meeting, where attendees got lots of hands-on training. I had the honor of being one of three models for the workshop! It started out inside at Layne Haley Photography‘s studio in the Strawberry Hill area. The better party of the day was outside (in 100+ degree weather might I add) walking all around to different locations in the West Bottoms area. Even though most of the shots were taken in the middle of the day with full sun around, the lighting technique he used made it look like they were all at night! The photo on the left below was shot at 2pm! EPIC. lol. We ended the night in front Layne’s studio next to an old factory, where he taught us about creating light trails and modified settings about shooting in lower light. It was an awesome workshop and everyone had a great time! Thank you Brett for coming out to KC! Have a great time on the rest of your tour!

Pictures by Brett Jarnagin for Flashfire Workshop at KC SmugMug.