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Rolling with the BIG Dog - After 2015 Convention - part 5 of 1 2 3 4 5

by Damian McGillicuddy Published 02/02/2015

This kind of improvisation is crucial to a working photographer. If you're on a job for a client - especially if, as in my career, the client happens to be a famous celebrity - you can't not take a photo because 'the equipment wouldn't fit'. At least, you can't do that and expect to get booked again! So it's important to understand not just what equipment to use but what that equipment is actually doing for you - that way, you know what properties you need to recreate if you need to improvise.

Finally we added our mid-ground light, a barefaced speed light with a CTB (colour temperature blue) gel and a single barn door to camera right of the subject. A benefit of the barn door in this situation was to create an even spread of light on the backdrop; again, space constraints meant that I could only use a single translucent umbrella to light the background where ideally I would use a pair. By putting a white barn door on my accent light, I 'pushed' more light towards the backdrop to compensate for the single backlight, ensuring a white background with no gradation

With my lights in place, it was a simple matter of setting rear- (or second-) curtain sync on my camera and making sure the speed lights were set to 50% or less of their power - use your meter to get the aperture. In doing this, it might surprise you that the shutter speed actually becomes irrelevant; the act of 'freezing' the paint in motion is achieved thanks to the unique properties of the speed lights themselves. When set at full power, the light is emitted at something in the region of perhaps an 1⁄800 of a second.

However, by dropping the power of the unit to half its output or less, the speed at which the light is emitted becomes much faster, perhaps some 1⁄6,000 of a second. This will change from flash gun to flash gun so testing is crucial. With that being the case, it then becomes the fast flash 'blip' that 'freezes' the liquid in mid air. All you need to do now is make sure there's someone on your team who can a) throw paint exactly as you count 'One, two, three!' and b) actually hit the model!

Another year, another great outing at the Socieities' Convention. I can honestly say that this is one of the absolute highlights of my calendar, and if you haven't been before then you honestly owe it to yourself and your photography to come along next year. Who knows what I'll be getting up to next January - they say you shouldn't work with children or animals, and I've already broken the first rule... Till next time, McGillicuddy

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1st Published 02/02/2015
last update 09/12/2022 14:51:42

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