At the last Dobb’s Ferry workshop that Joe McNally held, we were grouped into teams based on our small flash brand. Our assignment was to find a location in the fantastic old and deteriorating factory building where the workshop was hosted and to create a lighting solution for a scene that we envisioned. There were three of us in the group and each would take a turn at being the photographer while the others would assist.
The building that I own still has some of these old factory windows, so it seemed natural for me to want to use them as props. I decided to shoot Amy through the window as she ran through her poses and we thought that a hard rim light would add drama.
Amy was great, my assistants were good, we had the help and advice of Syl Arena and I was lucky.
There are two flashes being used: one on either side of Amy. The one to camera right is firing at a stop higher than the one providing the kicker light on her hair. I balanced the ambient (afternoon sunlight) with the shutter speed so that it provided fill and used the aperture to allow the flashes to be the main light.
After looking at this for a while, I’m not sure that the light makes sense for the scene. What would be going on inside there that created that type of light? Although I’m pretty pleased with this effort, I can understand just what skills and talents it takes to produce the really great examples of this, and I’m glad that the likes of Joe McNally and Syl Arena are eager to share their knowledge and techniques with the likes of us…
Linda and I are headed off on vacation. Sort of… We will be going to St. Lucia to meet up with that McNally guy mentioned earlier for more attempts to learn how it’s done. To misuse the old photojournalist’s formula for success: f/8 and be there, and I can think of no better ‘there’ to be than in Paradise and no better teacher to be there with than Joe.
Keep watching for our attempts.
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2 Comments
Very very cool! I toyed with heading up there. Must have been fun!
The effect, to me, is that it's late at night and she is trying to look out past the headlights that are coming from the Police car that just pulled into the driveway.
Very nice shot.