Woodland Glade
This series of shots was taken in a woodland glade, with two small pools, one above the other. As soon as I found the location, I decided there had to be something I could do with a reflection in the lower pool, and started to build the shot (click on any of the images for a larger view)…
Without any lighting, the location was still very photogenic (shot to the right courtesy of my iPhone), but the constantly changing sunlight was all over the place, and in test shots, was drawing the eye all over the frame. I decided to bring the sunlight under control, and use flashes to focus the eyes where I wanted them to be.
Deciding to shoot with the model, Frankie, on the path running above the lower pool, I dropped the ambient down quite considerably with a fast shutter (running at my PocketWizard limit of 1/250), and smallish aperture (~f8, although I varied that from shot to shot, depending on my shooting position). I always find that getting the ambient to the level I desire first of all makes placing the lights far easier, otherwise you’re trying to balance too many variables at once.
There was a fair amount of wind, so I decided that using shoot-through umbrellas was just asking for a flash to end up in the pond. So, bare flash all round, just using the zoom of the flash to spread the light. This meant I’d need to be careful with my flash placements to ensure I only got hard shadows where they wouldn’t look too odd.
The main unit was the SB-900, which I was triggering with a PocketWizard, and depending on the shot, would place either on the left or right hand side, slightly in front of the path between the ponds; fairly narrow beam, and at around 1/2 power. All the other flashes used were set to SU-4 optical trigger mode, and acted as a chain reaction, triggering each other. Opposite the SB-900 (depending on which side I was running the SB-900 itself) was an SB-800 at around half the power of the main light, and a wide beam, to provide some fill on the darker side of the model. Both these lights also served to pick out some of the detail in the foliage around the model, but were carefully placed so as not to blow much of it out, and draw the eye too much away from the main subject.
A third SB-800 was placed on the near bank of the lower pond, again around 1/2 the power of the main light, wide beam, to provide some front fill of the foliage below the model.
Finally, an SB-26 sat low down to the right of the rear pool (behind the model), around 1/8 power, to provide some illumination of the background.
The lack of light on the water itself meant the the reflection was far easier to see, and hopefully would lift out of the surface of the water (if that makes sense!)
The key here was for me to have the location itself lit in a pleasing manner which brought out the detail in appropriate places, but not to be obtrusive enough to take too much attention away from the model. Hopefully I pulled it off!!!
As I’ve got a track record of falling in lakes while taking photos (my little girl still hasn’t forgiven me for not waiting in the lake so she could see last time I did this!), I was rather relived to get away from this one completely dry, although there were a couple of close shaves when I slipped in the mud on the bank – good job no-one else was around to grab the “action shot” as I fell 
Thanks to Frankie (who is in the UK just for a couple of weeks visiting from the USA) – your patience was much appreciated!
If you liked this post, you may also like:
- Caught in the Light
Fixed but Flexible
Fast Cars and Fast Shooting
Regrets
Wasing Park Strobist Shoot
Subscribe to this blog
Follow on Twitter
