This page features the articles that readers found most useful in June 2007. For a full list of articles published in June, check out the archive page.

• A Good Way to Start Your Studio? A quick look at the Westcott Photo Basics lighting kit
• Shooting Fireworks How to make the most of your evening
• Portrait Lighting For Beginners: Laws of Light We explore the foundations of light that affects all things photography
• Why You Need An External Flash
• HowTo: Light When You’ve Left Your Gear At Home
• Smoke Part 2: How to Process Smoke Photographs
• Smoke Part 1: How to Photograph Smoke

If you’re starting out in the world of portrait photography and you don’t have much or any studio equipment, this might not be a bad way to start out.

Popular Photography magazine has lined up their Editor’s Choice 2007 list for lighting, and the Westcott Photo Basics lighting kit is on the list.

I started my studio out this same way, but with a kit from Interfit. If you have no equipment, this can be a good way to go. With this kit, you get two or three light stands, two or three umbrellas, a carrying case, a background, and a pair of 500 watt per second strobes. The heads are color coded to match with indications on an included 6×11 foot mat that spells out how to set everything up for some traditional portrait lighting schemes. This part might seem a little elementary for you, but it could act as a great reference when you’re in the “heat of the shoot” and you can’t remember everything you’ve read online and in those portraiture books.

All this will set you back $400 to $500, depending on which setup you choose. Since it’s a Westcott setup, you could surely find accessories to upgrade your setup later on. Softboxes and more would surely be a snap.

Get the Westcott Photo Basics 502 Two Light Kit or the Westcott Photo Basics 503 Three Light Kit from Amazon.

With July 4th coming up just next week (for those of you in the U.S.), this is a great time to talk about how to photograph fireworks. Fireworks can be a fun diversion from your normal “take pictures of the kids” routine, and you only get a few opportunities a year to do it. So here’s what you need to know to take great photos on Wednesday night.

1. Plan your composition. You’ll want to decide ahead of time how you want your photos to look. Do you have any landmarks you want included in the frame? Trees? Think about these early and plan out your strategy.

2. Choose a lens with proper focal lengths. With fireworks, you don’t know where they’re going to go off in the sky. Because of this, wider focal lengths will give you a better chance at catching the action. That huge 400 mm lens won’t do you any good here if you never catch any fireworks. Keep your shots a little wider, but don’t be afraid to get in tight and really fill the frame with color once in a while, once you know where the action is.

This is easily one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen in the world of photography.

I’ve heard of light painting before, but these guys take it to a whole new level with stop motion animation using long exposures and hand-held lights. I can’t even begin to imagine the level of patience, talent, coordination, and pure skill it takes to create some of the animation sequences they make.

If you have a few free minutes today, use them to watch this video. I promise you won’t wish you’d gotten those few minutes of your life back.

And if you decide to try your hand at creating some “lightning doodles”, post your results to the reader photo pool so everyone can enjoy.

This article is part of the ‘Portrait Lighting For Beginners’ series. This series is meant to help you go from a beginning photographer to making beautiful portraits.

I wonder how many of my readers ran like the wind when they read the title of this post. “Oh crap, here he goes talking about laws of the universe and physics, I’m outta here!” Not to worry, I’ll keep this short, to the point, and most importantly, simple. So here we go.