I remember as a child I made drawings with red and yellow flames: red, surrounded by a yellow aura, and I was impressed by how much that looked like flames.
So tonight in the studio, remembering that, I decided to add yellow hair to a red background, like so:
…and I am happy to see that it works just as well as it did when I was a child.
A beauty dish lit the face; a softbox on the right provided a little fill; the background was lit with a speedlight with a red gel; and then the yellow was from a gridded speedlight with an egg yolk yellow gel. 100 ISO, 1/125 sec, f/8. I used Bowens studio strobes, and speedlights with Honl photo modifiers (gels, grids). I set off the lights with Pocketwizards (and the light cell, in the case of one of the studio flashes).
The moral of the story: you should play. Children know how to do that; adults forget. To get new ideas, to be creative, it is important that you play. Try new stuff. Try odd combinations of things. That helps you create: in big ways, but also in little ways like in today’s shoot.
Now, back to authoring my new e-book, “Powerful Portrait Photography”. ISBN 978-0-9918636-5-5. Almost done: watch this space and http://learning.photography.