The History Of NoBs

By James Hodgins CPA
(Co-Founder)

Where did NoBs Photo Success come from? Did we pluck it out of the air? Did it magically appear one day on the web?

Well, there is some history behind NoBs Photo Success. When I first got into photography I was like a sponge, trying to find as much information as I could. I would hit the library, the bookstore and buy/photocopy as much info as possible. I was also assisting Rob(the other founder) at that time, since he already owned a photography studio and was busy shooting all kinds of stuff- weddings, portraits and commercial.

I just couldn't seem to get enough information, or information relevant to what I wanted to learn that particular hour of the day. Luckily I just obtained internet access. (This was way back in 1999)

WELL! That changed everything. Now I had VAST amounts of photographic information at my hands. Everything I wanted to learn was easily accessible.

So I thought. See, I was a "starving" photographer. I didn't have lots of money. Like most photographers starting out, we purchased some equipment here, some equipment there, and so forth- building up our arsenal of attack. At this time, I had a Canon Eos Elan, the 28-70 lens that came with it, and a newly purchased Vivitar 285 (the first of many for me). What could you possibly photograph with this? I wanted to shoot weddings, and more immediatley I wanted to shoot portraits.

Shooting portraits would make me the $ that I needed to buy more equipment and support my photographic addiction. Unfortunately I couldn't find anything on the internet on "how to take studio portraits." Oh, I found some tutorials by the masters, but they were all stating that I need 5 studio mono lights or a powerpack with heads that cost $1000's of dollars and such. I just couldn't afford that.

Why couldn't I take good quality studio portraits using the cheap equipment I had. Light is light, right? Couldn't I just invest in another cheap flash and have TWO lights? Better yet, find 1 more now I have 3. See where I'm going with this. I was learning a lot working at Rob's studio.

I did have equipment and lights at my disposal, but what if the studio wasn't available, and heck, I wanted my own equipment. After mentioning my frustrations to Rob and stating what I thought was the obvious about light and flashes, he agreed.

You could create high quality portraits using available light, or simple flash's. Light was light. Since I couldn't find the information, why not create it ourselves and provide the information for other photographers. Especially the photographers that will find themselves in the same situations and frustrations that I am in.

We started to schedule shoots with a few models so that we could do "tutorials" on lighting with limited ressources. We started just shooting windowlight (because it doesn't get any cheaper than that) using nothing but foam-core reflectors.

One time we actually went to the local hockshop and picked up a Canon AE-1 Camera, and a few cheap no-name brand flashes (I think one was a Blacks). We setup a make-shift studio in Rob's basement (yes we could have used the studio, but we wanted to show others that you didn't need it to create portraits) using black sheets, foamcore reflectors and our trusted cheapie flashes. We took wide angle shots of the setups, we explained the different forms of lighting and the results each light had on the subjects.

Along with the wide angle shots, we drew diagrams with explanations. We did several of these within the month, and soon we had a little booklet together. We were planning on making an information product for photographers. Since I couldn't find this information on the internet, why couldn't we provide it for them.

This is when Rob came up with the name NoBs, because that is what we were doing. Photography without the BS. Very simple techniques, very mundane, but it works.

Soon digital came around (a few years actually), and Rob's studio was converting 100%. This put the NoBs plans on hold, as he was busy shooting and I was busy workflowing. The digital solution was a complicated one as everything was new.

Trial and error we kept plugging away at it and eventually came up with a systematic workflow (one that we still use today). Rob was one of the first to take the digital plunge. (Read his article here).

Rob always said that nothing changed really. That the fundamentals still apply, and digital, or the computer, is the darkroom and art room- on steroids of course- but still the same essentials.

After some time we were getting calls from other photographers regarding our workflow, and techniques. It came to the point that after answering the same questions over and over and over, we decided to just put pen to paper and spell it out for them. This is where NoBs came back into play. We broke out the old box of pictures and diagrams, blew off the dust and sifted through the contents.

Why couldn't we continue NoBs with digital? It was a sound idea to begin with, our way of doing things in the past is the way we are doing it now, the NoBs way, and so it began again. But mostly what was mind blowing was the fact that we were getting very decent results, and NONE OF IT MADE ANY SENSE. It went against the grain to what the 'conventions' were. What the academics were preaching. (Read that article again to get this point)

We created our first Digital Bootcamp Manual with step by step "How-to" tutorials on digital techniques. At the same time we had our first "out of city" Digital Bootcamp in Toronto, the responses from that seminar were overwhelming.

Click for Larger Image
(Some of you might see yourself, as your still members to this day)

For the next few years we were speaking at conventions, hosting seminars, and still working at our own business's. I had become an internet junky at this time, constantly on forums, trying to soak up all the photographic information I could. Eventually I was tired of them, or I overstayed my welcome, and thus created the NoBs Forum. Well, let me backstep a bit. Our intentions from the beginning were to open up an online community, and with the state of other forums at the time it just pushed us into doing it faster.

So www.nobsphotosuccess.com was born. That was 2 years ago.

For some of you who only know us from the forum, NoBsphotosuccess does have some history, and we plan on creating a heck of alot more of it in the future.

Cheers.

James