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