Sunday morning, around mid-day, in downtown Oakville I shot a fashion shot for a magazine front cover.
Outdoors fashion is, as always, a matter of many things coming together at once. One of those is light. Without light, even on a wonderful overcast day (wonderful in photo terms), the image lacks something. The mother and daughter models lack a certain je-ne-sais-quoi.
Actually I do know – they lack light:
![20110904-MVWS5782-1200 Models in Oakville (Photo: Michael Willems)](http://www.speedlighter.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/20110904-MVWS5782-1200-333x500.jpg)
So we add a flash. I used a Bowens 400 Ws strobe, although I could have used speedlights. The sequence is as follows:
- I set my camera to manual.
- I select 1/200th second and 100 ISO.
- That gave me, on this particular day, an aperture of f/5.6 for a nice saturated background. (To arrive at this, I can use my in-camera meter or my light meter set to ambient.)
- I now add the strobe, set it to 80% power about 6ft away, and test this with the meter (now set to flash mode). Well have you ever: the meter immediately indicates f/5.6! (This is just experience. If you are less experienced, no worries – just turn the light up and down until you do read f/5.6).
That gives me:
![20110904-MVWS5780-1200 Models in Oakville (Photo: Michael Willems)](http://www.speedlighter.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/20110904-MVWS5780-1200-333x500.jpg)
If I want the background a little darker I change the speed to 1/250th (still in my flash sync range):
![20110904-MVWS5779-1200 Models in Oakville (Photo: Michael Willems)](http://www.speedlighter.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/20110904-MVWS5779-1200-333x500.jpg)
Okay, we are set. If the sun comes out a little more, I go to 1/250th, and if it gets a tad darker I go to 1/160th.
The idea of this shot is autumn – so we now bring out the props. Autumn flowers and fruits and vegetables now gives us this:
![20110904-MVWS5808-1200 Models in Oakville (Photo: Michael Willems)](http://www.speedlighter.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/20110904-MVWS5808-1200-333x500.jpg)
Notice the speedlight with a blue-green gel as accent/hair light on our right? The speedlight was held by Kurt, who assisted on this shoot, and was set to 1/4 power (again – experience tells me that setting will probably work – and it did).
The final step is to make that an egg-yolk yellow gel instead of a blue-green gel – yellow accentuates the late day setting sun feeling that is synonymous with autumn. (I use Honl Photo gels).
![20110904-MVWS5814-1200 Models in Oakville (Photo: Michael Willems)](http://www.speedlighter.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/20110904-MVWS5814-1200-333x500.jpg)
And there we have the image. (In fact this is not quite the image – that one went to the client, and I do not like to publish images in this open forum before the customer has used them!). Also – note that these are shot a little wide since this is for a magazine front page, so there needs to be space for text.
Notes:
- Umbrellas and softboxes outdoors will be blown away, so hold on tight.
- If the models move, use AF-C/AI Servo focus mode.
- With two models, be very aware of the danger of blinking – one of them will blink in very many images, so check, and take many images.
The setup was as follows:
![20110904-MVWS5809-900](http://www.speedlighter.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/20110904-MVWS5809-900-500x333.jpg)
Fun shoot.
(And perhaps also, a shoot that explains why photography costs money: A car full of equipment, props that get used just once, two sets of clothing, and five people taking several hours. All this costs money!)