Sonora Photo Modelling Weekeend!

It is been quite a while since the last time I joined photography workshop held by Sonora. Sonora is one of legend radio station in Jakarta owned by Kompas Group. Every month they regularly holding the photography event, inviting professional photographer in Indonesia as the mentor. This is kind of workshop, learning to photograph event. And the theme is various and changing every month. From food photography, street photography to model photography. The event being wrapped up like this. First session will be the mentor will presenting their work and the technical aspect of the photography. And then continued by presentation by the sponsor, usually the camera gear distributor. And the last will be the workshop, so we will invite to do the real practice mentored by the professional photographer.

So it was a usual sunny Saturday. I packed in my camera gear, Nikon D3500 with the 50 mm lens f 1.8.  I took gojek to go to the event location. It was at Red Top Hotel, located at Central Jakarta. Actually Red Top hotel also belong to Kompas Group, so it is kind of obvious why of the event held there.

Usually I go to the photography event alone, but today I joined with my friend who also have interest in photography. The event was held in one of the meeting room in the hotel. Before the event started, we were invited to enjoy coffee and snacks available from the hotel. 

The participant who joined the event were quite a few. Some of them I recognize from the last event. 

So the theme today was model photography. The mentor was William Sutanto, one of professional photographer in Indonesia who has his own photography company. 

As expected from a professional photographer, he is really understand and explained well the technical aspect of the model photography. He is also presenting the examples from his work. So he has a basic as an architect, so the main theme of his work is doing the architecture photography. However he is also doing the commercial photography for advertising and model photography. Not only explaining about the technical stuff, he was also explaining from the business perspective as well. 

After finished with the technical presentation, then accompanied by the staff from Prima Imaging( photography stuff distributor which become the sponsor of the event), William was testing and performing several tricks in lighting for model photography. The lighting set was using broncolor, which is kind of famous and well known product. The model name was Chloe and she was beautiful.

William also explaining the importance of keeping the talent ( model ) mood to be able to create good pictures. He is personally think that we should serve the model need and be respectful, so he/she feel comfortable during the photoshoot.

After showing some tricks with the lighting, we had a break for lunch. The lunch again provided by the hotel. After the lunch we will do the try out practice with the model. There was 3 location. First at the stairs, second at the hotel lobby and third at pool. 

First location was at stairs near the entrance. It is a pink color stairs which is kind of contrast with the model clothes, which is good according to the mentor. So first he was explaining the trick and suggestion to photograph in this condition, and then we can try by ourselves. He was also explaining the importance to have conversation with the model and directing the model. Myself only got a few photos, since there was only one model, and quite a few photographer. So it was kind of difficult to capture a decent picture. My friend also did struggle with his Fujifilm camera. He was bringing Fujifilm XT20

However I can say that Nikon D3500 combined with 50mm lens was perfect combination and really able to take a decent, pro looked like, portrait photo. With crop factor, 50mm become equivalent with 75mm. It is quite too zoom if you try to capture people with the surrounding, however perfect to capture the detail on the model face.

Personally, I love the color rendering, the smooth bokeh and the detail that can be produced by this camera and lens, even with wide opened aperture of f 1.8.
Most of the photoshoot was taken at outdoor, so we only use natural light. And of course since it was quite a bright day and hot, we can use the minimum iso of 100

After around 2 hours of photoshoot we came to the end of the event. It was a really nice experience. The model was great, and the mentor and the team was supportive. It was a great chance to test my Nikon D 3500 with the nikon prime lens 50mm f1.8.  To be honest with the price given,  I cannot ask for more