Umbrella of Light

©JP Parmley

We are headed to a local golf community to shoot a wedding in a few weeks. Our client asked for a special picture that they had seen online of the bride and groom under a translucent umbrella that is flooded with light.  It gives an appearance that the umbrella is shooting the light down on them.  I had also seen similar pictures, but have never replicated it with a client.

This is actually a very easy picture to create using 2 Speedlites and one small softbox.  In the last post, I describe exposing for the ambient light.  In this case I was on my deck, it was about 10 min after sunset and there was still a lot of light compared to what the final image shows. 

Step 1 - Expose the Background the way you want it: So I wanted the background to look completely dark.  I took a test shot with no flashes @ 1/160, f5.6, ISO 640.  It was at least 3 stops underexposed giving me the black background.

Step 2 - Add the back light:  I added the a Speedlite with no modifier behind the model, on the ground, shooting straight up.  This flash was set in manual mode at full power. 

 

Rear light, no main light

Step 3 - Add the main light: Once I had the illumination of the umbrella the way I wanted it, I added the second Speedlite about 36 inches away from the model, camera left.  ETTL was giving way too much light because it was trying to light the entire dark scene.  I moved to a manual mode and ended up at 1/32 power. 

You can play with the power settings on each to provide a slightly different look.

Other than a little noise reduction in the dark areas, there was virtually no post production work on these pictures. 

I will post some pictures of our bride and groom in early June.

Enjoy

Expose for the Ambient Light

©JP Parmley

One of the topics that is initially difficult to understand is "Expose for the Ambient Light" for outdoor portraits.  I have had many questions about why I use off-camera flashes outdoors.  Flashes are for indoor use....correct?  Just the opposite.  I use flashes more outdoors that I do indoors, and here is why.

Expose for the ambient light.  What does this mean?  Simply, set the exposure to capture the ambient light correctly.  This means that your sky or background is properly exposed.  Now, if you insert a person into the frame, they are often a silhouette because the shutter is set very fast to limit the light from the bright background.  The background is correct, but the person is too dark.  This is where the flash fills in the subject so that both the sky and subject are properly exposed. 

So, expose for the ambient light and let the flash(s) expose your subject.  You will end up with the entire picture being properly exposed. Your subjects won't be underexposed and your backgrounds won't be blown out.   Make sure you set your flash to High Speed Sync to keep up with the faster shutter speeds.

In this example, you can see the blurred out grass behind the model.  I set the exposure for the background.  The settings were 1/500th, f7.1, ISO 200.  At these settings the model was well over 2 stops underexposed. If I would have exposed for the model, the grass in the background would have been well over exposed. With a EX600-RT in ETTL mode, shooting through a white umbrella just 18 inches from the model camera left, we bring the exposure back with out the over-flash look.  I added a second flash behind the model camera right at 1/64 power with a 1/4 stop CTO gel attached.  It gave that sunset look, when actually it was taken in mid afternoon.  It was very windy that day and I just needed a quick shot.......the hair was going all over the place!

Enjoy.