Óðinn part 1

Settings: Ambient is .5 stops below neutral grey. One flash to camera right, aimed up so that just the bottom edge touches his face, at 1.5 stops over neutral grey.

I'd been wanting to take photos of my friend Óðinn for a while, and finally got a chance to. We did a multi-part shoot to make the most of our time. This is where being mobile really pays off. I'm convinced that with studio strobes and a large battery pack, with the extra time it would take to set everything up, we would not have been able to fit this much in. The daylight was fading fast, and we had a narrow window when the light was perfect.

I've been to this location before, but not during the snow. It opened some really nice possibilities. The sky was still quite bright, and was providing a nice soft even light, this provided for some nice photos with no lighting equipment needed.





After a few nice shots in this setting, we moved to these wooden beach chairs that were covered in snow. There was some beautiful light still coming from the horizon, and I just wanted to add a touch of light with the strobes, to bring attention to his face. I could have oriented myself on the side of the light, but it would have given me a much darker background, and I wanted some of the interesting sunset in the background.



Settings: Ambient is .5 stops below neutral grey. One flash to camera right, aimed up so that just the bottom edge touches his face, at 1.5 stops over neutral grey.

The biggest thing that I learned from this shoot, is that when using an unmodified flash, and letting in enough ambient to make the shadows not so harsh, I like "short portrait lighting". You can find a detailed explanation here. The quick explanation, if the flash is illuminating the front of the face and the side of the face you can see, it's "broad" lighting. If it's illuminating the front of the face, and leaving the side of the face you can see in shadow, it's "short" lighting. Broad lighting with an unmodified flash is less pleasing (to me) than short lighting. I hadn't consciously recognized this preference of mine till this shoot, and I'll let it dictate my lighting placement for future shoots.

Here is an example of broad lighting. I like the pose and composition, but wish I had taken this photo with short lighting instead. The broad lighting is leaving his face too flat for my taste, and not bringing in enough of the colored shadow from the ambient to tie him into the background.



Settings: Ambient is 1 stops below neutral grey. One flash to camera right, at 1 stops over neutral grey.