A Flock Of Flashes

I believe this photograph now holds my personal record for most speedlights used in a single photograph. Let's count them. From front to rear:

• 1 key light used with a shoot through umbrella
• 1 fill light bounced off of the floor beside me,
• 1 kick light used to create the highlight on the background 
• 2 background lights aimed at the shelves in the background
• 1 skid light aimed at an angle to the ceiling, and
• 1 background light aimed at the back wall

The Key Light: Nothing special here. I used my twelve-foot tall light stand to position the light high and to camera left. I angled it slightly to prevent severe over-exposure to the clock by the left edge of the frame.

The Fill Light: When I can, I use a Joe McNally technique of bouncing a flash, positioned perpendicular to the floor, to provide a highlight at the lower edge of the subject's eyes. It does throw some light into the nose shadow, but cannot brighten the teeth. The effect is very subtle, but I am a big fan of catchlights, and I am always uncomfortable when I can't see any. See left photo.

The Kick Light: This flash was aimed specifically at the rack of clothing behind the subject. I wanted to add some three-dimensionality to the clothing behind the subject. I clamped it onto a clothing rack at camera left. In retrospect, I should have reduced the power, or eliminated it altogether.

The Two (Shelf) Accent Lights: Because the isle between the two facing shelves was so narrow the flash beam angle, even at its widest setting, couldn't completely cover the box-filled shelves. This forced me to use two flashes to get the coverage I needed. Each flash had its own light stand. While the selves themselves don't add anything to the photograph, it prevents the warehouse from looking like a cave with no ending.

The (Ceiling) Skid Light: I started by aiming a flash perpendicular to the ceiling. Unfortunately, the reflective surface of the insulation didn't give me the effect I wanted. I then moved the flash as close to the back wall as possible and angled it so the light would bounce off the ceiling at a 45 degree angle. This increased the coverage and highlight size. And if you look closely, you can see the flash mounted in a "foot" on the floor.

The Background Light: The last light was placed to light the far wall of the warehouse, placed to define the physical limits of the room. Even though the flash wasn't powerful to fully light the wall, it added enough detail to proclaim its presence.

Controller Compatibility: My equipment included 4 older Gen 1 Flashpoint controlled and a total of 4 newer Gen 2 Godox controlled speedlights. In the past, I could cross-control these two different speedlight families by mounting a Gen 1 controller in the hot shoe of a Gen 2 controller. 

This photo shows a Pocket Wizard mounted on a Gen 2 Godox controller. A Gen 1 controller could be mounted in the same manner. I could have mounted the two controllers in tandem, but instead chose to maintain direct control over the original four speedlights and switch the three others to the speedlight's built-in optical S1 triggers. Shifting to the S1 mode requires manual adjustment of the output, but in truth, frequent adjustments are not needed for speedlights other than the Key light.

This photo was not an unplanned grab shot, but a carefully controlled and orchestrated photograph. It certainly wouldn't qualify as a "spot news photo" in the traditional sense, nor was it a managed candid. I wanted a photo that was eye-catching and visually interesting enough to encourage the reading of the caption.