The lighting plan for the afternoon was simple. Meter for sky to get a nice blue sky and then dial in the flash work to cross light
It was a 4pm sun so light isn't as harsh but nonetheless still required some power to overcome. I had to use 2 flash to crosslight with the sun. In some cases, it might just be too much power and the spread of light from 2 flash isn't even. Any overlap will naturally result in some hot spots. Diffuse light in this case would be good but the strong gust of wind makes difficult to set up brollies. Maybe a stofen would be another option but I was more concerned about getting some power to overcome the sun. I am currently seriously considering dusting the AB800 alien bee unit at home and getting a portable power pack for it so I can do more bright daylight shoot.
Here are a few examples of the shoot we did for the day.
2 sb28s to camera right, cross lighting with sun to camera left.
This was the original idea. A little kooky but not many of them shots worked out. Again, crosslighting.
Picture of strobists in the wild. Spot the annoying rival shooters in the background. They were quite persistent.
Just a few tips:
- The locals will know, there's hardly any warm weather in this country. Sometimes we're lucky, but never on the day you want to shoot. Consequently, expect your models to be cold. Always advice them to bring a long coat or something extra to keep them warm in between shoot. I usually shoot for 10 min at a time and then the models warm up for 15 min. Tedious process and cuts your shooting time by half. But them's the brakes if you're working alone. On big production shoots, ya get some assistants and probably bring along a portable heater. I get winded carrying my camera gear just climbing the slopes of Hellfire woods, never mind a portable heater.
- Models tend to frown in cold weather. Well, not at the photographer I hope (while secretly cursing them for dragging them out into the cold), but as a reflex reaction towards the cold. That makes them look quite cross in photos. Keep an eye out for this. Probably have to tell them to go for a neutral expression or figure an acceptable frown and clone it out later in PS.
- Find a natural wind barrier. The shoot got slightly easier later when we shot behind a sand dune. This will probably help if ya need to kill some ambient light ( provided the sun is on the other side of course) and you don't need to expose for the sky.
Okie dokie, that's it for now.
Oh yeah, here's the article on strobist about crosslighting.
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