Need help with a celebrity red carpet style shoot

Nology

I was recently hired to do a shoot for a party. The client has a 10' x 7' step and repeat wall and a red carpet for photos. My job would be to get pictures of the people as they come in and walk by the wall like a celebrity style red carpet event. Now I could easily set up my camera on a tripod and toss up some lighting and basically set it and forget it. But I only have one speedlight and a softbox thats big enough for a single portrait only. What can I do to make this work? I don't like on-camera flash but its looking like my best option. All help is greatly appreciated!

ziggy53

The red carpet does nothing but add red "Light Poisoning" to your shots. If you can, avoid lighting that carpet. If the carpet is lit, even from bounce, you'll get ugly looking shadows under the faces. It's better to cover that portion of the carpet with white.

The on-camera flash alone will make your images look like an amateur snap-shooter took them. If that's what you want, go for it. The combination of external flash (key light), used at an interesting angle, plus the on-camera flash, used as front-fill, can work pretty well. You can also use a large white reflector on the side contra to the external flash. If all you have is the single external flash then that's the setup I recommend.

Unless you can get security for the space you're shooting in, you'll probably have competition for other photographers. It's important that your external flash be fired via radio wireless and on a unique and discrete channel. A 16 channel radio transmitter-slave set is a very good idea.

At very least use the external flash, mounted on-camera, with a large-ish light modifier. The "scoop" modifier can work pretty well in getting the light larger and from a fairly interesting angle (compared to bare on-camera flash.) Bouncing the flash on a white wall, or corner, behind you also works pretty well.

Be sure to test your setup the day before the event, so you can make any modifications necessary based on the tests.

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Scoop modifier.

Nology

Unfortunately the red carpet is what the client wants. I don't like on-camera flash so that's totally out of the question. Im debating on getting another strobe and softbox or a mono light kit with umbrellas. The pics are only for facebook so they don't have to be perfect but I don't want to ruin my name with garbage.

ziggy53

Just because the client "wants" a red carpet does not mean they will like the photographic results. Show the difference from some tests with and without the red. Remember that the red carpet probably won't show directly in the images. (You should shoot fairly tight to the faces, especially celebrities. An alternate shot in portrait might also be suitable. Google-images for "celebrity" for ideas.)

An external flash, mounted on the camera but using a scoop or large reflector, does not have to look bad:

Nology

They are dead set on the red carpet and already have it. I also just found out that a velvet rope will be present meaning I'll have to keep the shots tight to their faces for sure. Maybe I can get away with using a gary fong lightsphere with the flash mounted on the camera or maybe on a stand slightly off center.

ziggy53

The "scoop" modifier is a cheaper, larger light source, and more efficient use of light than the Fong Light Sphere. It also positions the apparent light further up, yielding the results I've shown.

I've made 4 - copies of the scoop (3 - white, 1 - yellow) for a fraction of the cost of a single Light Sphere.