Back in the game

I thought that I was getting a little burnt out of taking photos…until last night. You have heard me talk about the photo group that I am part of at Black Hawk Church, well this last month we had a workshop that talked about how to use flash, the follow-up challenge was really simple: use your flash. We held it last night at the church parking garage (or “parking ramp” if you are a true Midwesterner). I asked Cerina, a coworker to be our model and she might have had more fun that we did.

The one shot I had planned looked really good in my head: Cerina sitting lazily on a big leather chair with a hole lot-a parking garage in the background, to do so I just had to back up away from the subject and move my lights farther out…but after I did that I saw that all of our shadows were in the shot because of the overhead lights…I never got the shot because I was to lazy and didn’t want to have everyone (several photographers, Cerina, a big leather chair and 2 light stands) move back 10 feet just for me. Another problem was with my lights firing, since they fire based on the signal my on camera strobe sends, the lights have to be able to see that strobe. Sometimes they were to wide or behind me to be triggered, nothing several hundred $ wouldn’t fix though. In all I had a really great time, especially when we went out to the sunset with the chair and then talked Cerina into climbing the front loader (she actually ran over to it very willingly before we could get the idea articulated.) Thanks again Cerina.

More images here

Technical: wide angle zoom with on camera triggering strobe, key light: speedlight with a shoot through umbrella. Hair or background light: bare bulb strobe. All fired manually with the Nikon Creative Lighting System. ¼ power for key light outside, 1/16 power for key light under parking garage and ¼ - 1/8 power for hair light (snooted) and background light (wide throw)