Lessons

Lesson Info

Off Camera Flash Examples

Sir anthony they're a couple of cool things about this we shot this for people on dh he actually showed up for the shoot by himself like no entourage nothing just not going to door open the door and he's standing there his hand come through the door and said hi I'm toni what do you want to do? And I'm not like while it I mean I'm a little cynical from doing this a long time and it was like this is so cool but this picture you're looking at was lit with one light through a schmear, a soft box and a reflector on the other side just like we showed you a minute ago this is dan brown wrote the davinci code when we photographed in this was fun keiko was working and keiko's holding the soft box and there are times keiko's official title is v l I don't even know what va all means in photography it stands for voice activated light stands keiko would you hold the light over there, please? And I'm telling her to hold up the soft box and she's like this and I said, could you hold it higher? And sh...

e said, well, this is a cz high as I go so anyway with dan brown we didn't actually need a reflector in the picture because he's on this staircase with a curved white wall that curved whitewall became our reflector this is one of my all time favorite subject. This is john updike, and I had the honor of photographing john about half a dozen times very sad when you passed on dh. So this was shot during an actual interview for der spiegel magazine, and once the interview starts, we can't do anything, we just have to let it flow, and we can't even make too many frames because if we make too many frames and start annoying the reporters, they're not gonna want iris again. But the picture editor says, you've got to come out with a great photograph so there's sort of this this diabolical position here, what we're going to do on dh so as we walk in and keiko actually walks behind the desk and I see her reflection, it's okay, this is what we're going to have john set because we can seat the people where we want them and then that's it. So we've got this really nice reflection on him in the table, but to go back to something from the last section, almost the beginning, where did I start the exposure? I start the exposure in the element, I can't control the lights. That's where I start the exposure and we're doing this and take a nice sort of kneeling down and I'm watching him and when I see a moment I picked the camera up keiko holds up the soft box will make a frame and then we sort of fade into the woodwork this is a professor wellesley college and the way we actually lit this one there to speed lights out here on this was shot a while ago so it was actually shot before I had pocket wizards okay so the challenge was how did I fire an infrared signal through a stone wall? The answer was we fired it that way tape some white foam core onto the wall and then shot the signal back up that on ly worked because it's dark in here that was the on ly reason at work and if we didn't have the white foam court wouldn't have worked today with a set of pocket with that I could care less that there's a stonewall makes no difference at all this is some kid I shot at harvard who just had no money when I took his picture it's actual very funny I get this assignment from the editor and she calls up and she says rick there a couple of kids at harvard who doing something with their computers I got to go to a meeting is this kid mark zuckerberg is his phone number column take his picture so I get over there and I think I'm convinced the reason that mark zuckerberg is in the front chris uses in the back because there were two very nice college kids you know? Neither one did I know they were thanks zuckerberg is wearing a blue shirt that's what in front? You know, living in boston I have this thing I like columns I like balustrades on graphics and angles so I take a look at this and I go with is my picture frame the guy we just have them sit there and course we know where we started the exposure, the element we can't control and the only challenge we had was how to get some light in there because the balustrade the angle of its right here and this side didn't work so we actually took a speed light we took that little plastic stand that it comes in we took the speed light and then we actually used a piece of foam core we blew the light this way into the corner and then bounced back. Now if I was going to do that today I would have used that gadget which I'm going to show you in a moment let's go one of two more this is a one light picture or a three light picture depending on how you look at it this was an assignment. This gentleman is president of phillips global lighting and he was at a conference in boston on dh we had to catch him in between meetings and make a portrait on the assignment was go make a fortune well, the guy's philips lighting you gotta get lights in it somehow so we snagged this guy in between meetings that here hold these two things and who plugged him in literally he's just holding to graduate flecked er's you know, excuse me clip on light go into the hardware store we threw the reflectors aware we threw the clamps away all we had was chords and sockets and that's how we let it but again the shamir a soft boxes right here the reflector is right here and that was our lighting thiss was part of a piece that keiko and I did on young jazz musician for the french equivalent of people and hey, if you want to come visit the studios three blocks behind that building and s so knock on the door it's lower door but again this is lit with the shamir a soft box exposed for the sky on dh we've got a picture they were looking for a couple of photographs as usual we overshot it on we ended up with the cover and eight pages of photographs on the magazine and I get paid by the page pickle can I have the pieces of this one please oh it's right in front of me no wonder I can't find it thank you. Okay so this gentleman is a very noted scholar is now at harvard at this point he was at m I t and the assignment is they want us to photograph professor pinker andre wants some students in the photograph but we don't want you sitting on talking to students and you know that's the end of the assignment well that's a lot of our assignments are like that his somebody's phone and go take the picture completely up to us to figure out what to do so you know we decided we'd really place and we did seventy seven mass have in the bill in the picture which is the entrance to m I t remember I said I carry a fish eye is your fish I that's how I bent the building gave us nice graphics with in the crosswalk the problem was the only time he could do it was the middle of the day right about now okay. Oh my god. What are shadows like how awful is that so what we did is I showed you one reflector before this one thiss particular one is a five and one reflector and I'm gonna quickly pull it out pull it apart so what I end up with on this because I've got a white one it's not his rigid is the other okay and I got a black side and then you can pull it apart. By the way, we have tons of these the's a great the's like fifty, sixty bucks in a place like carrying. So then you have a goal a silver side in gold side so white's giving a soft light silver is giving us much harsher light in a lot more light on the gold's warming it up. However, if I pull this apart ended with two things. One when I'm traveling, I have a laundry bag which is really good, and the other part of it which is much more useful is this translucent door don't. So what happens is I've got awful light and those of you that shoot weddings and outdoor functions and you have to do the bride in mid day and it's hot out there and, you know, she's sort of starting toe wine in melt simultaneously we make this big deal out of it. We brought you shade and we run over and we stick it over the head and go wow, that is shade. What it does is it softens the light out. It knocks about a stop a light out on dh so what happens here and this is literally done in the middle of the street, okay, during a walk light so the assistant runs out into the street with this drops a ladder in the street runs up the ladder holds this over the professor's head I run out with the camera and do this so these things they're great this is just one of those tools can I see the other one please just to show it by comparison so this I like this that I use these a lot but a good gust of wind but they're very reasonably priced if you want to go to the other extreme want a diffuser thank you keiko this actually comes with a pole so someone literally could hold it okay this thing has a poll well this is a lot bigger it's rigid it's going to give you very soft light you can actually change the fabrics but it is appreciably more expensive this is made by california sun bounds it comes in this size and like seven foot square and literally there's a poll that it comes with on dh you have like you know like when somebody is in a marching band and they're carrying a flag what has a flagpole holder and that's how you hold this thing it's really good it takes a few minutes to set up phone and like I said it's ifyou're going to use it once in a while go by that one it'll work fine cal you might wanna work great thank you keiko so let me show you quickly a couple more and then I want to hopefully have enough time to show you a little bit more of some lighting. We actually already did a variation of this. We're blowing the shadows up this we shot with a flash bender, I had no light stands, so I literally stuck the flash bender on a music stand, and this was kind of fun. I mean, she was a student of mine and she said, hand playing violin it a event tomorrow night, you want to go have dinner afterwards? I said greatest showed up. She was marie antoinette, this one this gentleman eyes john henry owns the boston red sox, keiko and I have an assignment to go photograph him, and it was fun because it was one of the only times I ever shot at fenway park where I didn't have to shoot the game just wondering, so we get up there, we're talking with john's associate on dh she's really sweet, but she said to us, look, you only get a couple of minutes to shoot and he really hates flash there's what we want to hear, oh, goody, how we going to do this? Okay, so weak when we scouted out, I actually when we go in, we actually take to pocket wizards way haven't stacked up on ones on the street I have on top of the camera two of these in a flash and I make a point of saying in front of john well we won't need this and I take the stroke and I walk over here and I said it on the counter facing that way I still have a transmitter on my camera I exposed for the background I can't control the lights going this way he's watching the game see this white wall there's another one right behind me the lights go on this way it's blowing off the wall it's lighting and he's never seeing the flash and are a couple of minutes we were in there out of three or four innings with get along with your subject no what they dio just let me say we're at here sorry oh perfect just where I want to be okay this gentleman here is actually the public face of the group and non which makes him not so anonymous but take a look at the light in this image this is one single speed like okay bounced into pardon me this so this is a reflector from california sun bounce it's called a micro mini what I like about this wanted it it actually folds up this small the polls come apart but look at the light we're getting here one speed light bounced into this we could all the highlights on the fire escape on if you're working alone with this you can take this and by means of you know any one of the clamps you can mount it on to your lights stand andi just going to get this together here that's going to go there this is going to go here and you'll never guess where my speed lightened pocket wizard going I'm not telling so that's going to go there and now I could mount this on a light stand and I can still be working alone and I can do that light in the case of this we're actually walking around in a twenty five minutes we shot four locations so let me show you one of two more and then I hopefully we'll have a minute or two to shoot with this great thank you okay we're back to m I t to the columns were now on the side of the columns this gentleman is this what you and I doing store in this gentleman just to orient you the streets over here buildings over there we come in we've got a reader light if we didn't feel rude ian ok rudy would be in the shadows so again keiko's just doing this with the speed light in the pocket wizard were filling it in and here we are again with rudy on we're trying to do something a bit introspective and it's really cool because you get this big chrome building talk about a reflector this big round crumble this a status centre at m I t and keiko's holding a light over here careful not to throw glare anybody want to guess where I start my exposure told you'd hear it a lot this is why I love but I might be right this is the exact same location. Okay, completely different light the last one and jump back trick this is lit with this. This one is lit with a soft box is a matter of fact I even left it in the reflection so you can say it there it is, but I love it on lee it emmett, can you walk around with a pretty blonde in a space suit carrying a helmet? And nobody seems to notice there's like perfectly normal questions? Does he account? How much does the account for the exposure on the reflections? Well, you know you're you're reading your background, we're still reading the element we can't control, so I'm really sort of analyzing light in my scene and if we take a look at the professor's face, we can see that she's lived without being overly let ah okay, this actually came out of aa workshop that we did in the uk I actually did was actually a lot of fun I did ten workshops in like three weeks in the uk and so this was on a normal workshop we all go out and shoot you no way actually do what we call silly group pictures which I'm not sure you're tying to do group pictures but we might but this all the white in this photograph is one speed light and that shamir a soft box that's the only kind of reflect that's. The only thing I put in it so we walked out of that. This was done in a camera store in this is in southport, england, and we walk out of the camera star, walk a block to the park and in three minutes this together. Now look at all these beautiful highlights on our model's hair on her back. I didn't do that. That's the sun. Okay, what I did was to bring some light in from this side. Don't do this, it's all I have to say about that picture, okay? And I think that's really the end of the segment. So do I have two minutes to ah, to shoot a picture using the might have exactly two minutes. Okay, quick to the talent, quick to the assistant. That would be you cake. Oh, yeah, that would be gonna be working for her soon, by the way, okay, so let's take now that's just where it's a little it'll take this you get that I'll fix this this's roughly about our normal setup time. Throw that out of the way so you could even hold it. You don't even have to mount it, let's. Just pull this off. I'm sure exactly how we did this. Ah, let's, hope it's still gonna function. Okay, let's, watch for our lights going, keiko, and light it as if you were, like, come to me, that's, clear like that kind of lean back, a little bit that's looking visionary. The only thing I have to say about these is, you know, we're pretty darn close to having our photograph in the allotted minute and a half that I got to on that's. A lot of our world.