Tag Archives: carlson park

Adding one light for more drama

If you’ve gone to the trouble of getting a model, gathering props for a location shoot, you should always ask yourself what else you can try before you call it quits.

Most of the time, you’ll work till your light is gone especially if you’re having a great time.

But it’s a good habit to ask what else you can try to push the envelope.

Look at it this way, you already have the shot you want “in the can,” why not experiment?

 

One flash about 2 feet away–I photographed my student Dan Schaefer posing with classmate Ana Pinheiro’s guitar with my Canon Powershot G3, a rangefinder, exposure was f8 @ 1/1250 sec ISO 100. My point & shoot camera has a hot shoe and it can sync at any shutter speed because it is a rangefinder. I used my Canon 580EX Speedlite on 1/8th power connected to my Cybersync radio slave. The exposure for the flash was about f8.

What do you stand to lose? Some time?

It will only take a few more minutes. After all, you already have all the elements there.

The model, the light and the equipment are already in place. Don’t get lazy.

Though the lesson for my class was about shooting silhouettes, I thought it was important that my students to see what adding one small bare flash can do their earlier silhouettes.
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More silhouettes

Translucent umbrellas–I held 4 umbrellas to see if we could get an interesting image. Too bad I didn’t have more colors to choose from.

When I worked at the newspaper, there were many occasions when I didn’t have assignments.

Those slow news days meant lots of room in the paper with nothing to fill the pages with.

That was the perfect showcase/opportunity to challenge a photographer’s creativity to come up with “wild art” or feature pictures.

Exactly what is a feature picture? Feature pictures are just any “found situation” unposed, unexpected with a human interest.

That last part ” human interest” is often up for debate.

In a pinch any interesting image that has strong graphical design will work. For that, silhouettes are hard to beat.

Continue reading More silhouettes