Using a flash near a road

Robert Bird

Robert Bird

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Robert Bird
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hi guys

Just after a little bit of advice.

I have this idea to do a long exposure shot of a busy road near me from a bridge with someone leaning against the bridge looking down the road.
I was thinking of doing a longish exposure to get the car light trails and a flash at the start to freeze the person standing on the bridge.

Now obviously the safety of myself and everyone around me is the most important thing as i dont want to cause an accident or get arrested.

Has anyone done this type of shot, is it legal and if so what precautions do you take to make it safe

Thanks
 
The powers that be (Police/Highways authority) used to do it all the time - from little yellow boxes on sticks ~ two flashes actually; approximately 0.3 sec interval between the two flashes. Never heard of anybody having a crash - just a fine!
 
A snoot on the flash could be a good idea to prevent blinding passing drivers temporarily?
 
Busy/quiet road?
Oncoming traffic or going away from you?
Flash directed towards o rover-spilling into the traffic lanes?

There's some really basic risk assessment you can do for yourself.
 
How close can you get the flash so you can reduce output power? How are you managing overspill? What's your insurers liability if it goes wrong?
 
Hi guys its a busy road the a64 in yorkshire the idea is to be on a bridge with a friend leaning against the railing i will be at the other side of the bridge so the flash will be lighting up my friend from across the other side of the road on bridge. So there should be no way the flash can blind drivers at all i will be lowering the flash power.
I have no public liability insurance as i am a full fledged newby
 
Robert Bird said:
Hi guys its a busy road the a64 in yorkshire the idea is to be on a bridge with a friend leaning against the railing i will be at the other side of the bridge so the flash will be lighting up my friend from across the other side of the road on bridge. So there should be no way the flash can blind drivers at all i will be lowering the flash power.
I have no public liability insurance as i am a full fledged newby
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Whilst everyone is giving (odd) advice re H&S, I'll question (make you think about) your method, there's 2 points here.

1. This reads like your flash will be on camera, many reasons not to, but anything you can do to get it off camera and modified suitably will give you a better photo.

2. Are you sure you can get the shot of the light trails from the wrong side of the bridge.

You can experiment with both these things before you go out to take this shot.
 
the flash will be off the camera low down on a tripod below the wall that is the edge of the bridge

i have not explained very well sorry as i said i am new to this
 
Robert Bird said:
the flash will be off the camera low down on a tripod below the wall that is the edge of the bridge

i have not explained very well sorry as i said i am new to this
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Don't lower the flash to avoid the road, it'll ruin the shot. The best bet is a gridded softbox, which would give very little spill to the road and looks good too.
 
^^^^ what he said :)
 
Unless you're using something like an Elinchrom Ranger and a Maxilite then the inverse square law will be your friend. I really can't imagine that a speedlites will be bright enough to dazzle anyone from a bridge.

..I've never tried it, mind..
 
Deffo dont lower the flash, Id try it high looking down for some drama, looking forward to seeing your results...good luck
 
@MWHCVT is your man for this , what he doesn't know about dogging near motorway junctions :LOL: long exposure on motorway bridges isn't worth knowing
 
MWHCVT said:
I'm out right now, but will respond to this thread later this evening when I get home
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But...But....But you jus.......
 
Right, so now I'm sat with something other than my tiny iPhone to type a response...for the light trails part of the image really that's going to pretty standard 30 seconds plus exposure / ISO100 / f/8-16ish dependent on light levels...it might be prudent to do a little bit of testing to get your flash set up as right as possible before being out on the bridge as a simple courtesy to the motorists (simply put so you can minimise the amount of actual uses of the flash)

If it were me I'd certainly be firing the flash at the start of the exposure rather than the end as it makes it easier IMO the model will not have to wait for the flash while striking a pose, but honestly I do very little portraiture beyond the odd bit of club photography when pushed so I'd certainly default to those of more experience shooting OCF for that element of the shoot

From a H&S standpoint honestly my biggest consern any light stand used getting blown over and potentially falling onto the carriageway below, so I'd make sure to weight it down or secure it somehow, I really don't think the odd burst of flash for a fraction of a second is going to dazzle or impede a driver..I also cannot think of the top of my head of any particular law that would stop you from doing this idea, that said shooting normal run of the mill light trails will from my experience attract the attention of the police about 1 in 3 times of shooting so be prepared for them to arrive and to have to explain what your up to
 
Have done similar over the years: https://www.flickr.com/photos/andwhynot/2946734025/

As said by most other posters, you shouldn't have a problem affecting other drivers if you approach it with common sense as well as photographic ingenuity.

The thing that's easy to overlook re long exposures is how to use time to your advantage. It's often possible- favourable, even- to perform elements of a shot in a perverse order. Your flash can come at any point during the exposure so, subject to model's comfort, fire the flash when it'll have least impact on drivers. You may at this stage have plans to shoot with lots of traffic around but lots of traffic potentially means lots of additional light to compensate for, which can end up overpowering whatever you're trying to achieve with the flash.

Wait til the traffic thins out and you may find it easier to bring the different elements of the shot together, especially taking into account gaps in the traffic to avoid affecting other road users. I still don't think the flash is too big an issue, as long as you're not firing directly towards traffic, but there's no harm considering it.

I too am posting from my frustratingly small-keyboarded iPhone but there's a further point I'll come back and add tomorrow, to do with harnessing linear increases of exposure values. I need a full keyboard to be able to express it fully & swiftly.
 
Robert Bird said:
hi guys

Just after a little bit of advice.

I have this idea to do a long exposure shot of a busy road near me from a bridge with someone leaning against the bridge looking down the road.
I was thinking of doing a longish exposure to get the car light trails and a flash at the start to freeze the person standing on the bridge.

Now obviously the safety of myself and everyone around me is the most important thing as i dont want to cause an accident or get arrested.

Has anyone done this type of shot, is it legal and if so what precautions do you take to make it safe

Thanks
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Drivers have to be adaptation to what is happening around them, so if you fire a flashgun, drivers should focus on their driving not get winded up with thinking "What was that?!" and looking all around to see what is going on. If there is an accident, it is their fault as much as yours if they were looking around to see what happened and was not watching where they were driving.

Just make sure you do not point your flashgun at any drivers. Why not use some diffusers on your flash to softer the flash and adjust your settings to allow for that?

Beside, you can always fix the problem in Photoshop.


Robert Bird said:
Where i was looking at doing it is where a mobile tax van usually parks lol
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They're checking the cars for the number plates to confirm if those cars have been taxed, not to watch for anyone like you firing a flashgun.
 
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