It's been four years since this industry lost one of its most talented photographers, Dean Collins. Thankfully we have a record of his techniques and we can still learn how to light subjects directly from him through his videos. Collins was a master of all kinds of lighting situations. In the early '80s he founded Finelight Publishing, a company designed to provide lighting instruction to all photographers, pro or not. He produced hours of seminars that are available on disc now.
Dean Collins
In "Dean Collins On Lighting - Live at Brooks Institute of Photography", a DVD remake of Dean's live information packed seminar hosted by Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, CA., Collins engages his audience and teaches brilliant lighting methods in easy and simple to get steps. His videos are lively and rambunctious - use pause/replay so you don't miss anything. This program has the only footage of Dean in action and provides amazing insight into the mind of a world famous and extremely well regarded photographer whose work with lighting remains timeless. Truly great stuff.
The blogsite "Strobist", http://www.strobist.com, written/edited by industry insider and photographer, David Hobby, provides intelligent info for photographers on, according to his website,"... only one thing: Learning how to use off-camera flash with your dSLR to take your photos to the next level. Or the next ten levels."
Says Hobby, "Regular readers of my site will know that I am a huge fanboy of Dean Collins, who was probably the best lighting instructor there ever was."
Hobby has a highly deserved following among savvy Photogs. There are over 1,000 articles on lighting on his site, covering every imaginable eventuality. At http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist, Hobby has nearly 60,000 members passing tips and tricks back and forth. On some sites so much chatter is overwhelming, not so on Strobist where the threads are easy to follow and stay on topic.
The blogsite "Strobist", 
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