"$1,000, shake his hand, it goes in his pocket… that's how it works!" Joe McNally talks lighting, and the lengths he'll go to get it!

Nikon has released a series of talks from its ambassadors that were filmed live at this year's WPPI show. Nikon will also present a great lineup of speakers at The Photography and Video Show, later this week, and it may give you an insight into the talks that can be seen at the NEC in Birmingham.

Among the WPPI speakers whose talks have been released on the official Nikon USA YouTube channel is renowned portrait photographer Joe McNally. His presentation, Managing Light, focuses on the importance that lighting plays in photography, and how photographers ought to learn how to control both natural and artificial illumination to get the best out of their work. 

Whether you are using the best lighting kits on the market, natural light, or the best-LED light panels, learning the nature of light and how to control it is key and remains constant across all forms. You can watch Joe's talk below:

His opening line is an obvious yet eye-opening reminder of how we as photographers capture our art. "As photographers, light is the pen with which we draw the world we see." 

The very word photography comes from the Latin 'to write with light', so having the ability to control light is vital in capturing what you intend, especially in the world of portraiture and commercial photography in which McNally is renowned. The ability to have an idea and recreate it as you imagined is made much more comfortable when you know how to use light to 'paint' it.

His talk also highlights the necessity of using light to enhance the subject that you are capturing, tailoring the shape and quality of the light to suit the subject. An example he gives is when he took a portrait of a martial artist, and how using sharper and more angular light, echoing the subject, gave a more harmonious image.

Supplemental lighting can enable adaptability in various shooting environments where sufficient natural light isn't available. An example given by McNally was when working on an assignment for National Geographic, he had to light an entire large building that didn't have power. 

He needed an entire truck generator to power all of the lights and was only able to get permission for the truck to enter the site with a 'donation' to the site foreman: "$1,000, shake his hand, it goes in his pocket, he says bring your generator truck on the island it's okay by me, and that's how it works." A great anecdote that shows the extent of getting the perfect shot!

Throughout his talk, McNally provides example photographs with insights into how he shot them, what lights were used, and where he positioned them. And he doesn't just use the best kit on the market to do it; many of the shots were taken with a speed light and not an off-camera studio strobe, as one might imagine. He says that he likes to use speed lights as they offer more portability and are small enough to hide within the frame if needed.

McNally has previously been one of Nikon's featured speakers at The Photography & Video Show, and Nikon is bringing a stellar speaker lineup to this weekend's event where more fantastic nuggets of information, demonstrations, and tutorials will be shared. More information on the speaker lineup and where to get your tickets can be found on the official website.

On top of providing several helpful guest talks, Nikon has been developing some of the best camera equipment on the market including the best Nikon cameras, the best Z lenses, and the best Nikon flashguns.