Halloween Lights

This was a quick one. This guy, Tom, had been slowly massing up a very decorative Halloween lawn display.

I was told to go get a picture of him for the paper to sort of show what his lawn looked like. Well I didn't want to make it over complicated, but of course... I did.

Big things that happened: one flash didn't want to work as a slave unit with my radio remotes. They're cheap remotes and now I know why. They like to malfunction at the slightest whim. So I had to pull out the backup cord to be sure to get the shot to work. Well the nights are getting cold here in Michigan and it's really starting to show. My flashes didn't want to fire too quickly what with the batteries being nicely cooled to a temp around 35 degrees.

This guy wasn't patient so I had to move fast and set up while he did whatever he wanted around the yard. Gladly he didn't mind chatting with me and I just wanted him to stand there. I set up a shoot through umbrella to the right of the frame and a bare flash to the left. Basic cross lighting. The umbrella was much closer to him than the other fill light so it was a big weaker around 1/16th which is one of my favorite shooting powers since the recharge is fast. The other flash was around 1/4 or so. I can't remember for sure.

I think the actual photo process took about 2 minutes. However, waiting for the sun to set, but not too much took about 20 minutes of watching the sky while I set up, and still, I missed the good yellows in the sky. The hard part was getting the flashes to want to sync up right so I could actually test my light on my trusty stand-in model, my hand. Yes, with a wide angle lens you can always use your hand to check what the light will look like on your subject. It's nice, and funny to look at in review back at your desk.

This was a simple portrait. I used the ambient light at about a one second exposure (pretty long) to really fill in the glow of the lights and the sky. The aperture was up high to let the flashes fire off correctly without blowing things out. It's not the best photo since his expression isn't good and he for no reason wouldn't really look AT me, but no biggie. It does it's job.