A Man Consumed by Light

Widely known as the Strobist, David Hobby owns the domain www.
strobist.com—arguably one of the most popular online photography websites in the world. With over 300,000 regular readers from every country in the world except Zimbabwe and North Korea (yes, seriously), he has helped launch a worldwide revolution in the use of small flashes for off-camera lighting.

As a student at the University of Florida, David worked as a stringer at the Leesburg Daily Commercial, a daily newspaper in Leesburg, FL, on the weekends and was one course away from a two-year engineering degree when he decided to change course. The turning point was seeing the iconic National Geographic cover photo of Sharbat Gula, the Afghan girl, photographed by Steve McCurry. “It affected me, so I figured there was something to this,” says David. With that, he decided he’d rather do photojournalism than engineering and changed his major.

After graduating with his four-year degree, he worked at Patuxent Publishing for about 10 years, where he met his wife Susan. They even worked together on a book, Columbia, A Celebration. “It was an amazing publication [with every article in] cover story format.” In 1999, David went to work for The Baltimore Sun as a photographer. “Over time, Patuxent became less photography-oriented, so The Sun was just a natural progression.” At The Sun, David covered a variety of events from sports, to the Miss USA pageant, to lifestyle, to food photography.

David comments on his experience at The Sun: “The worst was the shrinking; the steady layoffs of photographers over time. I really don’t think we’ll have newspapers in 20 years at all. The best part, however, was that every day you would show up and you would be handed two or three slips of paper, and you would head out and go see interesting things. I think it’s the best job in the world.

“I remember starting one day in the East Room of the White House, and ending it with a homeless guy—and it was the same story. I’ve shot a lot of sports. I’ve also been shot at while covering a hostage situation—I shoot, but I’ve also been shot at.”

When asked about who influenced his photography the most, David responds, “There was a photographer that I shot with at the Leesburg Commercial, named John Ashley, who was a huge early influence and now shoots wildlife stuff out West. For lighting, Dean Collins and David Hume Kennerly, the author of the book Shooter—I read that until the book fell apart.”

In April 2006, David posted the first reference to Strobist in a photo message board. He’d spent the previous month building up content on the site—including his now world-famous “Lighting 101” series, which has since been translated into several different languages—all by volunteers from around the world.

“I knew there was a big difference between what we were taught in school, and what we really needed to know to do the job right. I thought it would be nice to write down some of those ideas and leave a trail of breadcrumbs for students and young professionals. There were people who had helped me a lot when I was younger—like John Ashley—and I figured this was something I could do very easily to help people behind me. With the Internet being what it was—free and easy to use—I knew it would help me organize my thoughts. I didn’t have any idea how much it would help me at that point, but I figured it would be beneficial both ways.

“I liked the format of a blog, and I liked that if I had an idea I could jot it down, and ultimately anyone in the world could theoretically be able to see it.”

David’s early motto was “Less Gear, More Brain, Better Light” and he set out to show that you didn’t need a mountain of gear to produce high-quality photos. “Good lighting trumps fast glass,” says David. “Of course, it depends on what you’re shooting. If you’re shooting somewhere that you can’t use lights, like a high school football game, or documentary work, you need cameras that can shoot at high ISOs, or lenses with a fast aperture. For instance, the difference between buying a 70–200mm f/4 zoom and a 70–200mm f/2.8 zoom—just that one f-stop—there’s enough money to buy a complete lighting outfit, and you would be able to add things to your pictures that you would never be able to add just by having that extra f-stop. Especially for people starting out, I would suggest that they don’t get the most exotic lenses, and use that money they saved and build the ability to use light in their pictures.”

Since its launch, Strobist has become almost a fraternity of sorts among photographers—from dedicated amateurs to serious professionals. If you read Strobist, you’re in the club. The casual mention of the site to other photographers initiates a discussion about the favorite photos, favorite participants, favorite posts, the contests, the online course and the never-ending stream of new gear.

With his engineering background and as a self-admitted geek, David is able to quickly cut to the essentials, and explain how new gear works and what it will bring to the lighting photographer. “My engineering background has always helped me to be unafraid of new technology and I have always applied an engineering-style thinking toward every problem that I solve,” David says. “I try to avoid being gear-centric, but it does happen.” David has also worked with a variety of people on the design and production of new gear specifically aimed at Strobists, and has spawned an entire group of small entrepreneurs producing gear for this market.

David’s writing style is open, fun, self-deprecating and humorous. He is able to explain concepts in simple language that allows photographers to quickly progress up the learning curve and produce
well-lit photographs.

David comments on the progress that his followers have made using the education he’s provided: “It’s a little overwhelming, honestly. I consider myself a competent newspaper photographer. I never considered myself a standout newspaper photographer, and it’s neat to see some of the people that have picked up some of the ideas that I’ve put down on paper and see how much better they’ve become—certainly way better than I am in many cases. It’s also intimidating, your readership turning around and taking your knowledge and coming back at you with pictures that you would love to have in your portfolio, but don’t.”

Quickly realizing that he would not be able to handle the large influx of questions, David established a forum on Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist). This allowed photographers who were following his blog to share pictures, discuss issues and answer questions. New Strobists coming onboard today have a huge cache of information already written, problems already solved and gear idiosyncrasies already explained—all because of this forum. If a photographer runs into a problem, he or she can post the question on the forum, and 50,000+ photographers around the globe can probably help.
“It took a big load off of me. I no longer do the straight one-to-one questions and answers through email—I’d never get a chance to sleep. But it also, by default, created a vibrant community of photographers helping each other,” David says.

David also teaches lighting workshops around the globe. He’s taught workshops at Google in Mountain View, CA; CERN in Switzerland; and in Dubai, United Arab Emirates for Gulf Photo Plus. At the UAE conference, he was working alongside photographer/teachers such as Chase Jarvis and Joe McNally. David says, “Joe McNally is kind of a longtime compass point of mine, and I’ve had the chance to meet him, work with him and become friends with him over the past few years.”

David is also keeping up and improving his skills as a photographer by offering his services as a freelance photographer. “I want to be a location people shooter,” he says. “More specifically, I want to make engaged and technically sophisticated portraits of people who excel at what they do. I want to benefit from both the photos and the experiences of meeting my subjects.”

In addition to writing about his own photos, the Strobist blog serves as a showcase for photographers around the world. If David finds something that is new or interesting, he’ll share it with his readers. This ranges from links to pictures and articles by other photographers, to annotated videos—such as the YouTube video of Annie Leibovitz photographing Queen Elizabeth. In several instances, the sudden influx of new traffic has been enough to shut down the servers of those that he writes about as his readers click through to see more information.

However, David realizes that the photography business itself is in a state of transition. Print media is slowly collapsing, and online media is growing. Many of his side comments in his articles are clues to his inner struggle of wistful loyalty to his newspaper roots, yet reveal his bright outlook on the future of online publishing and social media. Periodically, David shares his thoughts on the industry as a whole, which sparks lively debate in the comments of the articles, and in the forums.

“I think it’s crazy to think that traditional print media is going to be around forever. I am a strong proponent of the idea that all information is trending towards free. Look at [Wired magazine editor-in-chief] Chris Anderson’s new book [Free: The Future of a Radical Price]. Photographers don’t like to acknowledge this, because we produce information, but information is absolutely trending towards free. With the caveat that specific information will not be free; I could not assign you to go photograph my wedding, and expect that to be free, but ultimately I would be able to get all the stock photos I want of weddings for free. It’s kind of daunting as a photographer, but you have to figure out a way to use the leverage of the fact that you can extend your product out to many millions of people for free, to grow your brand, to have some of those people, one-tenth of one percent of those people, be interested in calling you back to produce the things that can’t be produced for free. It’s up to photographers to understand how they can fit into the new ecosystem, and how to change with it.”

In December 2008, David posted his most controversial post yet, “Four Reasons to Consider Working for Free”. With a supporting companion post by Chase Jarvis, and a scathing rebuttal by John Harrington (author of Best Business Practices for Photographers), it rocked the online photography world, causing a lot of discussion among professional and amateur photographers alike.

“In retrospect, I think it was titled very poorly because that got across exactly the wrong connotation, because some photographers are taken advantage of by people who want to ‘hire’ them just for the experience, and I think that is a very predatory relationship between people who use photography and people who create it.

“My thinking is that many people don’t realize the power of what they’re producing, and how they can direct those projects—if you came to me and said, ‘Hey, I’d like you to shoot my annual report and we don’t have any money but it’ll be a good experience,’ I’m not inclined to do that. But, if you’re a foundation or a charitable organization, I can come to you and say, ‘Look, I can’t write you a check for $50,000, but I can sit down with you and design visuals for you that ultimately may be worth that much money to you as far as being able to generate other donations.’ I see that as a fantastic way for a photographer to control what it is that they are shooting and to be able to have access to subject matter on a higher level that they might normally get to do. If the photographer is in control, working with someone, not necessarily for free, but for their combined experience—essentially you are taking what it is you are capable of doing and using that as a catalyst to do things for you and for the person that you’re shooting for.”

David is excited about the future of Strobist and his own work, but he admits he is not sure where it will go from here. “I am probably going to keep integrating a charitable aspect into what the site does. What I would like to see is people channel all the enthusiasm that is created by having new skills, and doing good. I think that there is a very large force for good that remains untapped in the readership of the site and I will definitely be reaching out and trying to harness that energy to keep it working in a circular way with a charitable component, an educational component and a photographic component.”

No matter where David takes Strobist, we know this: The path will be well lit, and he’ll have lots of company.

Bill Millios is a freelance photographer/videographer in Frederick, MD. For photography, he focuses on lifestyle photography (portraits, people, parties, weddings). He is excited about the convergence of photography and videography and the blurring of skills it will require. He also writes articles for www.photocrati.com. You can see more of his work https://www.hopelandstudios.com.