This is one of my students in today’s class at Niagara School of Imaging (held at Brock University).

Awesome, no?

How did I shoot that? Simple.

1. A camera set to manual; 200 ISO, 1/200th sec, f/8. This makes the background go away, and 200 ISO and f/8 is enough to make the background look dark (it was a normal classroom).
2. My 24-70mm lens.
3. A Pocketwizard II Plus (Tx) on the camera.
4. A second Pocketwizard II Plus (Rx); connected via a Flashzebra cable to a Canon 580EX II flash (any flash will do).
5. The flash set to manual power, 1/16th.
6. This flash is on the table, on our right; with no modifiers at all, aimed straight at the subject’s face.

Once you know, it’s simple. 1/16th power was my first guess, and it happened to be right. If it had not been, I would have adjusted.

Simple can be good enough – it can be great!