As a supplementary post to the recent Bleeding Through portraits, I thought it might be interesting to share an example of the specific role flash played in the shoot.
The above image split of Bleeding Through’s guitarist, Jona Weinhofen, shows two images shot a fraction of a second apart. On the left, the scene is lit entirely with ambient light, while flashes were triggered in the image on the right.
Daylight vs. Flash:
As you can see, the natural lighting was very high contrast, with deep, cool shadows with the sun acting as the key light. On the right, flash is acting as the key while the sun here creates the fill. Flashes behind to the subject provide a little more interest playing off the folds of the jacket and brighten up some details of the clothing.
Ambient was underexposed by about a stop in the above. The flashes were fired on manual at full-power and triggered wireless through Nikon’s CLS system of IR triggering. You can reads about the full setup for the speedlights in the original post for the shoot.
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 at 9:40 pm and is filed under Portrait Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Posted an example for the Bleeding Through portraits showing the exact effects of flash vs daylight in the shoot: http://is.gd/m1Ja
[I share] Flash Technique: Daylight Fill:
As a supplementary post to the recent Bleeding Through port.. http://tinyurl.com/c7k4l2
Posted an example for the Bleeding Through portraits showing the exact effects of flash vs daylight in the shoot: http://is.gd/m1Ja
Welcome to ishootshows.com, the premier site for music photography featuring daily concert coverage, portrait features, and photo advice from professional music photographer Todd Owyoung.
Cellos, drums, and hairwhips: Apocalyptica are, as Tenacious D put it, “classically trained to
I caught up with the guys of As I Lay Dying on the Cool Tour for a quick portrait session before the
Both the new Nikon 85mm f/1.4G AF-S and Nikon 24-120mm f/4 VR have long been rumored, and they’ve
It’s hot, the summer solstice has come and gone, and, more importantly for many young music fa
Just a quick link to say that your truly was featured on Photoshop guru Scott Kelby’s Kelby TV
My name is Todd, and I love the rock show. My work has appeared in publications such as Rolling Stone, SPIN, the New York Times, Alternative Press, Metal Hammer, Entertainment Weekly, and Billboard Magazine. I'm available for worldwide travel for editorial and commercial assignments.
I had a photo journalism class in college and had to explain this to everyone seeing as I did photography professionally before the class. It’s a simple concept and crucial, but people don’t think about it. Good post!
Hey Tiffany, nice to hear from you here, thanks for stopping by to comment. Just going into this shoot with the schedule early afternoon time, I knew I was going to have to work with the sun. Better to use it as an asset than fight it, right? Thanks again.
I think the side lighting with the other flashes are probably the single most important thing most people don’t, or won’t, think about. It really adds depth to the photo, as well as detail, which you mentioned. Bringing out the folds and textures supplement the photo that without them, I think the photo is truly lacking. Horray for rim lighting! Weeee!
Nice post.
Lighting is something I continually struggle with.
Why did you have the flashes at full power? Wouldn’t that mean you’d have to compensate via a very high shutter speed and smaller aperture? Would 1/4 power allow you more creative flexibility in terms of DOF?
Hey Ash,
Since I was not using high sync with the flashes, I was limited by the conventional sync speed of the D3, which is 1/250. Given the bright ambient light, I wanted to cut as much of it as possible, which meant a low ISO and small aperture. Given these two factors, the flash light itself needed to be relatively strong to act as the key, so they were used at full power.
To use 1/4 power on the flashes, they’d have to be four times as close. Regarding DOF, shooting at wider apertures could be achieved by a higher sync speed or a lower sensitivity.