Learning to use off-camera strobe

Kinkajou

These shots were done in a little workshop. We had one off-camera flash and a reflector, shot at outdoor racquetball courts (very nice impromptu studios, actually) with daylight.

C&C welcome, especially since these shots were taken in an educational setting. Let me know whether the dark side of the face is too dark... or, whatever you've got will be appreciated.

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4. How do you deal with the backlit ears when doing rim lighting like this? I know I should clean up under the eyes and bring a little more light into the face so he doesn't look quite so sullen, but the main reason I'm posting this is for the ear question


5.


Thanks in advance!

Scott_Quier

1 - Not digging the light here - looks pretty flat. And the side shadow - not so good. And, you cut off the top of his head - what's he supposed to think with now? I do, however, like the way you've posed his hands - guys hands are sooooo hard to get right.

2 - Aside from the shadow on the wall, nice light. As for the light on the "shadow side" of his face - could have been darker shadow and still been really good.

3 - This is all around pretty good. Is the blown upper-right corner sky or the wall? Either way, the dark background to light background transition cuts right through his head in a distracting manner. The light on his face though is very, very good - really like it!

4 - For the ears, how about a brimmed hat?

5 - I like! The way you've got the very harsh shadow line and still lit his near eye - well done!!

And that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Qarik

the 1st 3 are doing much for me. The lighting is pretty flat and shadows are distracting. Finally the model's expression is a bit lifeless.

#5 has got some potential here but I think could use a crop.

Halite

#1 and #2: I would prefer a bit more difference between highlight and shadow in the first two to accentuate the structure of his face a bit more.

#3: the light might be just a bit high relative to his face so that it's throwing a bit more shadow into the eye sockets than usually desirable.

#4: you set yourself an interesting challenge with this rim-lighting, didn't you. Easiest solution is to gaffer tape the back of his ears to block the light, but I'm not sure he would appreciate that approach! <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/headscratch.gif&quot; border="0" alt="" > So you would have to gobo the light to prevent it from spilling on his ears. Imagine a piece of black construction paper or foam cut in the shape of his head including his protruding ears. This gobo would need to be placed between the flash head and the back of his head such that it is not visible, while allowing light to hit the edges of his head while avoiding his ears. If you're interested in this, I would recommend looking at how they describe lighting bottles in <A href="http://www.amazon.com/Light-Science-Introduction-Photographic-Lighting/dp/0240808193/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254160574&sr=8-1&quot; target=_blank>Light, Science and Magic.

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Kinkajou

some more info on the lighting and whatnot (mostly whatnot):

1 and 2 were done with the flash and maybe also a reflector... there was just one instructor for two groups, so he left us with a light on a stick and started to work with the other group first, so we had no idea what we were doing for a while

#1 was an intentional square crop... i have a thing for the SCPs... don't know why the original has the whole head, though.

#2 I lightened up the darker side of the face, but it sounds like it looks too flat now, so I'll take it back down

#3 is 7pm sunlight only, no flash, no reflector

#4 yeah - i dunno.

#5 just the one flash from the side... I actually kinda like the wide crop with the blackness all around. not sure why, but it works for me. sounds like this was the most successful of the bunch.

anyway, thanks for the comments. hopefully next time around i'll be able to get something more interesting.

ivar

I agree with the others that #5 does the most for me