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The summer edition: balancing with the sun
Dunno if there's a proper order for these or anything, but whatever...
I got a call monday midday a while back that was basically along the lines of 'Dave, we haven't got a cover... please be free'...
2 hours later on the wet pitch with the editor and Rich, who is an England hockey player, and then back in the offices for some interview candids.
Anyway, here's the photo that ran lead:
The lighting here was incredibly simple - there were 2 sb600's triggered by CLS to camera left, on light stands. No brollies, no softboxes. Uh, I lie, there might have been a 1/4 CTO gel on both the flashes. Can't remember.
The day was incredibly bright, and I really wanted to get a powerful look for Rich, the article was about his successes in the european cup, so quite a low angle shot, with the sun behind him, was gonna work quite well. It was also talking about future aspirations, the olympics etc, so I had Rich look into the distance and up, in quite a strong powerful stance, dead centre frame.
This also worked nicely with the requirements for front cover - there needs to be space for copy at the top for the magazine logo, and free space down the sides for details of articles etc.
However without some artificial light Rich was just going to be a silhouette.
Flash sync limitation of 1/250th (to reduce the ambient light) + very bright sun is a tricky balancing act, so 1st of all, exposed for the sky.
just to make life harder, I only had speedlights with me. 1 flash wasn't enough, and even with 2, they were both going at full power, but just about balancing out the background. Using the built in commander on the D200 still worked amazingly, though the flashes weren't more than about a metre away from me.
A little PP later, bringing out highlights etc, slight vignette, bit of exposure brush on the hockey stick especially, and it's done.
If you flick through from this one on my flickr you can see a couple of similar variations on the theme, knocking down the ambient background light by pumping light on the subject, to dramatic effect.
So yeah, now that it's (hopefully) getting sunnier, get out and balancing flash (or reflected light - reflector dishes are about £15 and very effective in bright sunlight) with the sun!
Dunno if there's a proper order for these or anything, but whatever...
I got a call monday midday a while back that was basically along the lines of 'Dave, we haven't got a cover... please be free'...
2 hours later on the wet pitch with the editor and Rich, who is an England hockey player, and then back in the offices for some interview candids.
Anyway, here's the photo that ran lead:
The lighting here was incredibly simple - there were 2 sb600's triggered by CLS to camera left, on light stands. No brollies, no softboxes. Uh, I lie, there might have been a 1/4 CTO gel on both the flashes. Can't remember.
The day was incredibly bright, and I really wanted to get a powerful look for Rich, the article was about his successes in the european cup, so quite a low angle shot, with the sun behind him, was gonna work quite well. It was also talking about future aspirations, the olympics etc, so I had Rich look into the distance and up, in quite a strong powerful stance, dead centre frame.
This also worked nicely with the requirements for front cover - there needs to be space for copy at the top for the magazine logo, and free space down the sides for details of articles etc.
However without some artificial light Rich was just going to be a silhouette.
Flash sync limitation of 1/250th (to reduce the ambient light) + very bright sun is a tricky balancing act, so 1st of all, exposed for the sky.
just to make life harder, I only had speedlights with me. 1 flash wasn't enough, and even with 2, they were both going at full power, but just about balancing out the background. Using the built in commander on the D200 still worked amazingly, though the flashes weren't more than about a metre away from me.
A little PP later, bringing out highlights etc, slight vignette, bit of exposure brush on the hockey stick especially, and it's done.
If you flick through from this one on my flickr you can see a couple of similar variations on the theme, knocking down the ambient background light by pumping light on the subject, to dramatic effect.
So yeah, now that it's (hopefully) getting sunnier, get out and balancing flash (or reflected light - reflector dishes are about £15 and very effective in bright sunlight) with the sun!
