Creating fairy-tale portraits with flash on location

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

How do you create a dark and atmospheric portrait in the middle of the day, while the sun is still shining? In this video, photographer Gavin Hoey shows how you can use flash to create a completely different atmosphere from what you would expect from the available light. 

Gavin starts with a shot in natural light, but wants to make the background much darker. By using High Speed Sync (HSS), he can shoot at a shutter speed of 1/8,000 second. 

This greatly suppresses the ambient light, while he lights Charlotte with a powerful speedlight. 

That turns out not to be so simple: at such short shutter speeds, the flash produces considerably less light. Gavin solves this by using a focused reflector and moving the flash closer to his model.

To finish the photo, he adds various props, including an old umbrella, a lantern and a book. He also uses smoke to add extra atmosphere and depth to the image. 

The result is a particularly atmospheric portrait that barely resembles the sunny garden where the photo was taken.

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