“What can be done with the club lighting kit?” + The Life of Lee Miller

13th January 2026

Our evening was split into two parts last night.

What can be done with the club lighting kit?

In the first half of the evening Brian explained very clearly how we used our club lighting. The club lighting can be borrowed by any member to use at home.

He demonstrated how each part of the light system fitted together, including stands, lights and soft boxes. He gave some advice on camera settings to get a good image.

If you use the club lights, then set the camera to manual exposure mode, shutter speed of 1/125th, ISO 100 and choose the aperture you want as a starting point. Then take some test shots to evaluate using the histogram if the light is too bright or too dark, adjust the power of the lights to achieve the desired results.

With the use of willing volunteers, he demonstrated positions to place people and how the light adjusted by moving himself with the camera or the models. The presentation was extremely useful and interesting.

If you choose too fast a shutter speed the camera shutter will not be fully open when the flash fires resulting in a black portion of the image as demonstrated. Choosing a too slow shutter speed allows ambient light to increase the brightness of the photo and can lead to motion blur if the camera is moved dramatically.

 

Thanks to the members who “volunteered” to face the light for me, I cannot do this without you 🙂

 

The Life of Lee Miller

The second half of the evening Carol delivered her presentation on the ‘Life of Lee Miller ‘. She was a model, photographer and photojournalist.

Lee was a top model in New York in the late twenties, then moved to Paris and became involved with Man Ray and the surrealist movement that existed in Paris at the time.

She left Paris for Egypt after marrying an Egyptian businessman, and then explored many of the surrounding areas and deserts taking some great photographs.

Returning to England she was taken on by Vogue again to cover the Blitz in London, the Liberation of Paris and she then joined the American allied forces and moved across Europe .The photos taken of the concentration camps were accompanied by the words “You Better Believe It” as rumours were beginning that the camps were not real. She returned to England, had a baby with her husband Roland Penrose. Sadly, she died of cancer in 1977.

Lee carried on taking photographs up to two years before she passed away.

It was also mentioned that there is a documentary about Lee Miller on BBC iplayer

Both presentations were enjoyed by all and thank you to Brian and Carol.
 

Blog written by Carol Haines and Brian Worley

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