Cameroon national athletics champion Jean Ammi Mbeng.
Step 1:
Get your ambient readings
I’m using my:
• Canon 1DS Mk III, with my EF70-200mm f2.8 L iS USM lens
the first step, as always, was to determine my ambient reading.
In this case at 2 o’clock on a bright sunny day my reading was:
• ISO is set to 100
• Lens focus length is 200mm
• Aperture is F8 @ 1/200th of a second You can see that the bright sun above Jean is a hard light source that is giving some great definition to his body. to complement the sun, i opted to use my Broncolor mobils and my elinchrom Quadra.
You can create this shot with any portable flash lighting although if you are only using speedlights you may struggle to get enough light strength.
The image at left is shot with ambient readings. The one on the right has my aperture adjusted to darken the background.
Building the shot | Creating mood and drama 127
You can adjust the ambient light by adjusting your shutter speed but in this instance my shutter speed was at maximum sync speed for my camera, so I had to adjust my aperture instead.
Step 1:
Get your ambient readings
I’m using my:
• Canon 1DS Mk III, with my EF70-200mm f2.8 L iS USM lens
the first step, as always, was to determine my ambient reading.
In this case at 2 o’clock on a bright sunny day my reading was:
• ISO is set to 100
• Lens focus length is 200mm
• Aperture is F8 @ 1/200th of a second You can see that the bright sun above Jean is a hard light source that is giving some great definition to his body. to complement the sun, i opted to use my Broncolor mobils and my elinchrom Quadra.
You can create this shot with any portable flash lighting although if you are only using speedlights you may struggle to get enough light strength.
Step 2: Build the shot
next, i wanted to darken my background to add some drama and mood so i closed my F-stop down by 1 stop to F11.
The final reading is:
• ISO is set to 100
• Lens focus length is 200mm
• Aperture is F11 @ 1/200th of a second
The image at left is shot with ambient readings. The one on the right has my aperture adjusted to darken the background.
Building the shot | Creating mood and drama 128
to light Jean, i introduced my front light first.
here i’m using a beauty dish with gridspot to help me narrow the focus of the light i’m introducing.
now that i’ve introduced an extra ½ stop of light to Jean’s body my light meter reading is F11½ @1/200th of a second.
Finally, i introduced my backlights. i’m using a small softbox (positioned to my right) and a gridspot (positioned to my left). i’ve also added a black “cutter”
reflector panel to stop flare from my backlight hitting the lens.
the reading off my backlights is F16½, 1 stop over my front lights. this is how we get the beautiful highlights on Jean’s arms that really sculpt his body.
Building the shot | Creating mood and drama 129 The image at left shows the beauty dish and grid spot introduced. The image on the right has the backlights added.
Building the shot | Creating mood and drama 130
Step 3: The setup
Positioning the lighting (from above).
After i’d finished Jean’s body shot i decided to try something with a tighter crop.
here is the final result.
The end
i was at a high-pressure shoot recently and one of my clients was watching me make adjustments to my camera and lighting.
they commented, “How do you remember all that stuff? You make it all look so
effortless.”
the truth is that after thousands of photo shoots it has become second nature but this wasn’t always the case.
Why am i always checking and rechecking exposure? Because i broke someone’s wedding.
Why do i always use a light meter? Because i ruined the shot of my life by looking at my camera screen for the exposure and my hairlight ended up being +3 stops over.
that shot should have stopped traffic.
instead, i lost a client.
how do i know how shutter speed affects flash? Yep, you guessed it – botched another job. i cried for a week after that job.
Why do i back up twice while i’m shooting?
Because an assistant accidentally dumped an entire shoot into the trash. i’m still in need of therapy over that one.
I’m proud to admit that I have failed spectacularly on countless occasions.
the aftermath is always the same. i have a complete meltdown become a bit tired and emotional. i then spend a week at home curled up in the fetal position watching entire seasons of One Tree Hill and consuming my body weight in nutella.
As painful as each failure is, I learned something new each time and i neVeR eVeR made those mistakes again. they become burned into my brain.
If you aren’t failing, you are playing too safe.
You need to go out and fail, time and time again. get up, cry for a bit, learn, grow and move on.
the good news is that you won’t be able to completely stuff up in the spectacular manner that i did. Why? Because you have smart digital cameras that will do it all for you.
But if you really want to take your
photography to the next level, you have to take a few more risks. Yes, there is more to lose but the payoff is oh so worth it.
it’s my hope that after reading this book you will be inspired to go beyond flash on camera and create beautiful lighting that defines your style as an artist.
i hope you take risks, follow your instincts and, most importantly, see the light.
So it’s with hand on heart and this is said with love: i hope you have a few
spectacular failures on your road to finding the light.
May your road to success be filled with amazing sights and lit with beautiful light.