And The Winners Are...

Cloverdale: Nothing remarkable this weekend. There was a competitive event in Cloverdale, and I was asked to make some quick photos of the winners for the club's blog page. I found this an easy thing to do if you do some basic planning before the winners start lining up.

I have one basic rule about lighting, and that is the position of the light is more important than quality. These photos were made with a single speedlight mounted on a light stand and triggered by a small radio controller. The height of the flash was about seven feet off of the ground, and the head was angled slightly downward. I verified this by placing a small toolbox where I wanted my subjects to stand, positioning myself beside it, and then staring directly at the speedlight. If I wasn't perfectly aligned with the flash head, I would adjust the head angle until it was. The flash-to-subject distance was a bit under ten feet.

This alignment technique ensures a constant subject-to-flash distance, and that the flash output will be centered on the face while fading slightly on the scorecard and the hands. The normal inclination is to aim the flash at the middle of the subject, which could have resulted in overexposure of the scorecard and underexposure of the face. A subtle difference to be sure, but one that would be noticed by a careful observer.

Expose For The Background: To prevent squinting and uneven exposure, I positioned my subjects so that they faced away from the sun. Exposure was set to 1/125 second, F 9.0, ISO 200. I started at 1/250 of a second, but dropped it a full stop when the background was too dark. The sky was a bit overexposed, but the hint of clouds was good enough. I could then adjust the flash output to get the proper exposure on the face.

Tipping Your Hat: I should have noticed that the shadow cast by the wide brim of this hat was a bit intrusive, but since both of the eyes were lit, I let it go.

Speaking Of Backgrounds...:I was using an APS sensor FujiT2 with a zoom lens set to 55mm. This provided a slight telephoto effect, giving me a nicely out-of-focus background. Granted, the cars in the background were a bit large (foreshortening effect), but sufficiently out of focus as to not draw attention away from the subject's face.

Where's The Sky? It had not occurred to me at the time, when photographing the Juniors, I was able to completely eliminate the sky while retaining the rim lighting provided by the sun. I just realized that because my subjects were now shorter, my camera was aimed slightly downward, thus removing the sky from the frame. I could have achieved the same effect by rotating the LCD viewfinder downward and raising my camera over my head in the classic "Hail Mary" position.

In the end, this fifteen-minute exercise taught me something important about the subject height and how it affects the background. I guess I learned a lot more than I realized.