[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnkD1Co3CtI]

Ray and Megan often shoot together. Megan is a wonderful photographer as well. They conspired to creates something fun in a tunnel on a Golf Course. 4 speedlights, a DIY beauty dish and some definite creativity created a great little set of images. I was glad I got to tag along and video tape it.

At first we were kidding around about the natural light, but Ray took a few and liked them so he shot some more. We then added 3 strobes in red gels for the tunnel light. We moved them with Megan in position till we got them where we wanted them. (BTW< Megan was freezing but stayed in position while Ray had me move the gel’d lights till he was happy.

We brought in the DIY Beauty dish and ended up feathering it instead of placing it right on her. When we brought it right into her, the light created a definite shadow on the wall. So, as you can see in the movie, we turned it away from her so that it ‘feathered’ the edge so it wouldn’t be so direct. Angling the light to have it fall to the side is what is known as feathering.

The shots have a bit of whimsy and mystery to them. Megan did a great job as a model and Ray’s images are fun and show us something that really doesn’t exist.

Information for today’s photographer. From novice to pro, LEMagazine has it all.

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I wanted you all to see how easy it is to adapt the lighting ideas in the DVD to strobe. I used the natural light coming in from above and behind as a hair light (shutter speed 1/50) and the strobe behind the diffuser as a main. I brought the fill in very tight for a nearly even lighting scheme. You can see the 430EX I had started to use as a backlight before settling on the natural light. It was so harsh and the natural light was so pretty.


One of the things you will notice about this setup is that it is a large group and it is shot with small, camera-mount type strobes. Hey, light is light. I was lucky to get some natural light for the headshots, but I wanted to make sure that the medium shutter speed wouldn’t allow for too much blur. I did a few tests and determined that I was ok.

I also shot some action shots. With a slightly lower shutterspeed, I was able to catch the action, but extremities had a little motion (feet, hair and hands) as they were moving the fastest.

My last shot involved shooting the whole cast of this dance company. It was to be my wifes last concert as a dance teacher (retired now… writing and managing) and so the title was “The Final Chapter.” It was a challenge to keep the dancers in the light and not behind the books, but taking time and not getting frazzled is the key. This is the shot as it is going up. Important to notice the fill card that is extending down from the umbrella on camera left. Without it the light would not have been even and would have dropped off on the ladies on the floor. The diffuser worked well. but to get that kind of ‘spread’ on the left side of the image, I had to work in a bit more fill to extend to the ground.

All in all, a simple shoot with a fun group and they love their images. Oh, and here is the Final Chapter Image as it was reproduced for posters and presentations.

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