When I first started out, I shot in natural light, period. I purchased a speedlite last year for a small wedding that I did, and I have had a love-hate relationship with it ever since. Don't get me wrong, using external flash devices can provide some amazing creative lighting concepts, it can truly is an art form, but I have yet to master this on-camera, I'm not afraid to admit it. After months of practicing and countless classes, manuals, and so forth, I still refer to my EX 580II as my nemesis. I have done some off-camera flash work and have been happy with the results, and have time to time used it as a fill flash, but I prefer to shoot in natural light whenever possible.
Case in point, my dear friend, Regina of Cloud Nove Events, was in need of updated portraits for her website. She wanted a certain look for the pictures and was able to secure the Crescent Lounge in Astoria, NY for the location.
Walking into the lounge, it was a photographer's dream. Vintage furniture, dark wood, an exposed brick wall, and huge floor-to-ceiling windows with velvet curtains. While I squealed like a tween girl at a Justin Bieber concert, I felt this panic in me that I was going to have to do a little more than fill flashing to properly light the place.
Getting my settings right proved to be challenging. I tried bouncing it, angling it, turning down the flash exposure compensation, and even tried using my Gary Fong Collapsible Lightsphere diffuser to no avail. It just wasn't working, I wasn't getting the results I wanted. Regina was patient as ever, maybe because she's worked with me so many times and she knows how crazy I get with getting my in-camera settings. Finally after about 20 minutes of tinkering, I finally just detached my flash and threw it down in my camera bag in exasperation {well, not really threw it, it is a $500 piece of equipment! Yikes}.
I decided to go all natural light with this one, we drew open the curtains, and in retrospect, if I did manage to get my flash working the way I wanted, I don't think I would have been as happy with the outcome of the photos. Let's face it, the lounge was meant to be dark! There was so much mystery lurking in the shadows and perhaps if I had illuminated it with the flash, it would have lost some of that character that Regina wanted in her photos. Perhaps if I get another opportunity to shoot there, I can play around and experiment, maybe with off-camera lighting.
Some of my favorites from the session::
WOW! Your blog is really cool. Glad I came across it! :)
ReplyDeletecheck out mine? I'm a photographer
www.electricbrandon.com
you should follow it too. :) thanks!