Senior Portrait Adding Flash

I did a post Last week about a Whirlwind Adventure I took to Bend Oregon. I did some senior portraits and I wanted to expand on a little lighting technique.

This is the Final Image and I did zero post production to it. Well, I might have bumped the saturation a little. But I spent no more than 5 seconds in post. For the final output I ended up cropping this a little. Image taken at 1/200 - f/5.6 - ISO200 See below for lighting diagram.

If you we're to deconstruct this photo the first thing you would say is that there is obviously rim lights. Yes that is correct I used two 580ex's triggered with radio transmitters. First one is sitting on a houshold bar stool behind subject right and the other is being held by her sister on the left.

Now for the Key Light, it's the Sun right? No, for the Key Light or Main Light I used a Quantum off camera to the right. I did it this way for two reasons. One, I wanted to get a more contrasty light on her face. And two, the light coming from the Sun was not casting the shadow pattern I wanted on her face.

Let's talk about settings. 1/200th - f/5.6 - ISO200. I used these settings because they underexposed the background by 1.5 to 2 stops.  This give me a nice blue in the sky. Then I bring in my flash. The settings by them self are really meaningless. It is the relationship of my flash to the ambient light.

I positioned the Main Light so that it is coming from the same direction as the Sun. The Sun is casting shadows on the rocks at out subjects feet. By positioning the key light to come from the same direction as the sun, all the light in the scene works together. If I had placed the Main light on he other side, it would look out of place.

I did not use a flash meter. I just exposed for the background and then brought in my lights to taste. I am not against using a flash meter, this job just happened to be out of state and I always try and travel as light as possible.

P.S. Traveling as light as possible means carrying a several bodies, multiple lenses, flashes and accessories... I just can't afford to bring a meter sometimes.