Today, Joseph Marranca and I were checking out the location for one of our next “Creative Light” workshops, this one to be held on August 13 at a beautiful location near the African Lion Safari park near Burlington/Hamilton. We will do great creative shots there with those who join.

The setting is agricultural, as this snap shows:

Great setting for creative photography – we could not hope for more.

But wait. Wouldn’t that shot be better with nicer light?

Yes it would! And that is one reason I always carry speedlights. With speedlights, you need not rely on nature to give you light. As it happens, nature did, so I did not need lights: moments after that shot, the sun appeared. But if it had not, I would have needed flash to get a shot like this:

I would have simply used a 580EX speedlight off camera, with a 1/2 CTO Honl Photo gel fitted with a 1/4″ grid. I promise you would not have been able to tell this from the shot above. And at the course we will use light for truly creative purposes.

A couple more snaps. That’s what they are, but even in snaps you try to be creative.

Blurred backgrounds that tell the story.. I like those:

I also like large detail that you can use to tell a story. We’ll talk about props at the course. Props like this axe:

More about props in future posts!