The softball location lighting shoot was done at dusk through the night with little to no ambient light. This caused some problems, mainly with working with the strobe settings (not easy with unknown buttons) and the getting the focus perfect. Auto focus won’t work, so manual focusing was done with a cell flashlight on the subject. Thank goodness I had a friend helping me with the flashlight and reflectors. The first photo used the above set up (#1). The golden light in the fron tof he subject came from the gold side of a reflector. The light with no reflector was too harsh, and didn’t give a different color than the side rim light. A slow shutter speed achieved the blurred background. The second sports photo was harder than it seemed (Diagram #2). The idea was to get the shadow of the chain link dug out fence on the subjects face. The light from behind the fence would usually over power the shadow, but finally we got one set up right with the shadows coming through before the second strobe died off. The last photo (no set up image) was achieved with one light with an umbrella. Low to the ground and directly to the subjects left front angle. Simple lighting, but I like the texture of the dirt. All in all, this was a fun shoot in theory. The images are fun, the model was excited about the photos. But the difficulties with the lights (constant misfiring, lights dying when brand new batteries we added, the single light that worked would fire maybe 1/4th of the time the camera shot a frame) made it hard for me to keep my composure during the shoot. But I kept it professional, and tried to not get frustrated. With mistakes and trial and errors comes more knowledge than something that goes completely smoothly. The next shoot with location lighting will be easier because of this one, bring it on.
This portrait shoot had problems of it’s own as well, but this time the lights worked fairly well after an hour of working at getting the system synced. I took many traditional photos and had 2 models for this shoot, but this goofy one had the best light, the best personality, and totally fit the subjects personality. This was actually the last frame we took before sprinting for cover. About 15 minutes into the photo shoot, and thunder storm rolled in with a torrential downpour. So the 15 minutes I got with my models was well used, but I wish we could have had more time in this great fall location, who doesn’t love apple trees?
Kaiti Grant 