An aspect to flash photography that I frequently underline in the articles on this site, is that we need to carefully consider the direction of light from our flash when we bounce our flash. Sometimes we just need to bounce the flash behind us into the room to get soft light. But when we have multiple walls / surfaces we can bounce the flash off, then our choices become more interesting … especially when we do portraits.
This is Carly Erin, a delightful model that I photographed earlier this afternoon. You’ll be sure to see a few more images of her in the coming weeks.
What I wanted to show with these two images, is how the direction that I bounce the flash towards, has a fairly dramatic impact on the final image. I once again used the black foamie thing to shield my flash from directly illuminating my subject. I bounced my flash towards the area that I wanted my light to come from.
Lighting diagrams to show where I bounced my flash? Not this time. : )
Instead, look at the images, and look at the pattern of light and shade, and try and deduce from that where I had bounced my flash. It’s all there in the final images.
Similarly, the approximate camera and (TTL) flash settings and approximate focal length are clearly implied. More important than those relatively inconsequential details, is the direction of light.
Last weekend I had the great pleasure of photographing Jeannie D, a well-known South African TV personality. Actually, “well-known” is an understatement – she’s a bit of a star.
The shoot was for the cover of Top Billing magazine. The cover image had specific requirements for the setup of the scene – a Manhattan apartment, with a view of the city in the background. I’ll post more of the actual cover shoot later on, but in the meantime wanted to show some of the portraits of Jeannie D that I got in between the TV crew setting up, and the setting being prepared …
For the shoot I brought in 3 Q-flashes and a barrage of umbrellas and softboxes and reflectors, as well as a Profoto AcuteB 600R kit (B&H) with softboxes. But I photographed a number of portraits, such as the one above, using just the available light in the apartment. The apartment was a corner apartment, and so had a lot of light flooding in from two sides. The light then reflected back from the white walls inside. It was like shooting inside a massive softbox. You just couldn’t go wrong!
This topic – balancing flash and ambient exposure – seems to one that many newer photographers struggle with. The big hurdle seems to be the basic starting point – how do you decide on the exposure for each?
I’d like to explore this topic a bit with this post. The trigger for this was a question that someone emailed me regarding an image in my book on flash photography. Instead of answering the question directly, I thought that a wider answer might be more illuminating. We’re still on that perpetual quest for more aha! moments. So let’s see where we head with this. (I’ll come back to the specific question and answer at the end of this.)
But why do we even want to add flash to a subject when the available light is soft?
The answer is that with flash we can control the direction and quality of light, and create a more dynamic image.
We don’t necessarily just use flash to avoid camera shake and / or poor exposure in low light. We use flash to create better light on our subject. We can ‘clean up’ the light that falls on our subject. Or to create more dynamic and interesting light. It’s about control. We decide. So where do we start?
The simplest approach for me, when I work in fairly flat and even ambient light, is to under-expose the ambient light by a certain amount. Then we add flash for correct exposure. So how much do we under-expose the ambient light by? Well, it depends. Usually a stop is good. Two stops can also work. If you’ve seen some of the images in fashion and music magazines where the subject is in a pool of light .. yet, the sunlit cityscape is darker, then that is because the photographer under-exposed the ambient light by 2-3 stops. Even in bright sunlight. So we have some leeway. That should ease some of the anxiety.
Under-exposing the ambient light by a stop, and then adding flash … is but one scenario, and one recipe. This approach won’t apply to every possible situation you might encounter .. but it’s a good starting point in grasping that Big Question – where do we even start in balancing flash and ambient light?
Let’s start of with an example where the previous method wouldn’t work:
settings: 1/125 @ f3.5 @ 800 ISO
lighting: Q-flash T5D-R, in TTL mode diffused by medium softbox to the right
(A speedlight in the softbox would’ve worked just as well here.)
Here’s the image without flash, just so we have a reference ..
An icy cold day in the Meatpacking District in Manhattan … and a brave model that insisted on going bare feet. That’s just a glimpse of the latest NYC Photog Shootout gathering that took place on Saturday. This shootout is part of the ongoing series of events arranged by Rob Nicholson. There were many familiar faces in today’s group amongst the new. Good opportunity to say hi to old friends, and make a few new ones.
As with the previous NYC shootout in June 2009 , I gave some instruction on some of the basics of manual off-camera flash to the groups. We worked with a Q-flash and a softbox (and sometimes without the softbox), and a bunch of Pocketwizards that I handed to anyone in the group who didn’t have. Strange thing – I ended up with one more pocketwizard than I started out with. Bonus! (Actually, if you were there and you’re missing one, let me know.)
It was a bit of the Wild West out there with the huge groups of photographers firing away.
The second group had an interesting addition to the shoot …
Video lights as a way of lighting still photography portraits is something that I’ve mentioned more often on this blog of late. When the subject and setting is such that a more dramatic way of lighting would work, then I quite often use video lights.
Here is a photo using a single video light:
This image is from the recent workshop in Philadelphia, and someone held a single video light to the right and above me. The angle that the light should be held at, is guided by how I want the shadow under her nose to appear. I prefer the shadow to appear as loop lighting or as butterfly lighting, instead of having the shadow of her nose fall across her cheek or mouth.
It looks dramatic and beautiful. In this case, with Nikiya standing so close to the background – an elevator door – we can get away with a single light. Similarly, if we had positioned her so that she is against an out-of-focus background with some colour and detail, then a single light would also work. Then the background would be light enough to create separation so that the model pops out.
With this image of Nikiya, I positioned myself so that the hot-spot on the metallic doors created a natural halo around her.
But when there is a background that would appear dark or even black, with no separation, then we need to make another plan. In this case, another video light to throw some light pattern on the background …
Here the second video light was held to camera left, and flagged with barndoors so that the light didn’t fall on our model.
Camera settings:
1/160 @ f3.2 @ 1250 ISO for the top image, and
1/125 @ f3.2 @ 1250 ISO for the second image.
White balance was Incandescent / Tungsten, adjusted a little bit as part of RAW workflow.
With these settings, similar results could be achieved at f1.8 or f2 and a lower ISO if you are using a camera that doesn’t have great high-ISO capabilities.
The beauty of the video light again is that with the quick fall-off in light to the edges, it creates a pattern and not just a flood of even light. Then there is always the ability to use the barn-doors to flag the light even further to create a swathe of light or just a streak of light in the background. That light on the pillars there give enough separation between the model and the background, and still creates a natural vignette around her .. adding to the dramatic look of the image.
Having just finished the second of the two workshops here in Cork, Ireland, I feel unusually energised after the two busy days. Partly because the two workshops ran very smoothly, courtesy of Liam Ramsell who co-ordinated workshops like these .. but also because I had two groups of genuinely nice people .. and on top of that I am just enamored of the country and its people. I love it here!
Back to the workshop .. the photo above is of our one model, Noreen .. and was taken during the practical session where we play with on-camera flash and figure out how to give us light that emulates studio portrait lighting. By being very specific where and how we bounce our flash, we can get short lighting with our on-camera flash.
To give you an idea of the effect that the flash has, and what the image would look like without flash ..
The second workshop here in the UK, (also sold out), was another full day of work work work and fun. With both the Brighton and Birmingham workshops, I mixed up the format again, bringing the practical parts of the workshop into the early morning seminar. This way the lecture-style seminar in the morning is broken up into various parts during the day, interleaved with more time with cameras in hand. I feel it works better than having the entire morning taken up by the seminar presentation, and I will most likely keep this format in future, with maybe a few more changes. As ever, the format and the material keeps on evolving ..
From the afternoon session where we used softboxes with manual flash – we brought both models together for part of the one session. And yes, the models did indeed stop the pedestrian traffic.
A portrait of Amy, one of our models at the recent workshop in Brighton, UK. Here we used a single video light on her.
I love the dramatic quality the light imparts, and how you can flag the light with the barn-doors to create a specific fall-off to the light in the background. The strong vignetting helps in giving it that dramatic look.
In figuring out the direction of light, and how to place the video lighting, I am largely guided by way the shadow of the subject’s nose is falling across her face. I then direct the model and the person who holds the light, to move slightly if needed. I usually don’t want the nose to cast a shadow across the cheek that blends into the other shadow areas.
As you can see from the shadow of her nose, the video light was to the camera left. In looking at this photo now in editing it, I think it might have been improved if the video light had moved slightly more to the camera’s point of view, so that the shadow of her nose is even less obvious. Then the way the left side of her face is shaded would’ve been less steep as well.
It’s in this analysis afterwards of a photograph that we learn how to improve the lighting and composition and posing for the next time!
I have already posted several images from the extended photo session with Sarah and Mark – but here is the epic video. The intention with these photo sessions was to expand Sarah’s portfolio as much as we could.
We started off at Coney Island, doing a session with Sarah and Mark at the edge of the beach with Sarah in swimwear .. and from there it went into more of a lifestyle shoot with the two of them on the boardwalk. Later on we had Sarah run towards the camera in sportswear. But we rained out with a massive thunderstorm rolling in over New York. We picked up the photo session again in Battery Park. Much of this session and onwards weren’t caught on video since the-other-Neil, who assisted me, had to stay with the van and drive around looking for parking while we continued with the shoot. There is a short section though, showing some of the Battery Park session. From there we moved up to Times Square to photograph a very glamorous looking Sarah in evening wear in Times Square.
Hopefully all of this will be a great view of the approach during a photo session, and how there is no single static way of doing things. Various techniques are used; the lighting too is varied; all to give a wide range to the look of the final images ..
Because of the positive comments I’ve had to the recent addition of video clips that show a glimpse of how I work, I thought I’d show the progression of an idea. Not just how the actual image was made, but how the idea progressed.
The photo above of Sarah and Mark at Coney Island, is from the day-long photo session where we went to different locations in New York. Where this image above started, was in a previous sequence ..
