Get more out of your location with flash

Thursday 7 March 2019, 15:51 by Frank Doorhof | 5,515 views | 0 comments

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

One of the things I always try to teach during workshops is how to maximise a location. By that I mean getting the most out of your location by trying different things.

I really think this is one of the most important things. You are there at that moment, so make full use of it straight away. Otherwise, you get home, look at your photos and think, 'Really... did I photograph this?'

Don't worry, that's perfectly normal

You are often under pressure, people are looking over your shoulder, there is no really good way to check your images, unless you shoot tethered, and so on.

So decisions are often made that are not necessarily wrong, they are often very good, in fact, but they are on the safe side.

This means you feel that you have shot some kick-ass images. But when you get home and look at your photos, they are still not as spectacular as you thought or hoped they would be.

By playing with the location and your lighting, you get two results:
First, you get different looks from the same location. But more importantly, you learn to improvise and become increasingly flexible on location, which means you can create great photos more easily.

During my workshop in New Jersey, we shot a series of photos at a location I had already wanted to photograph the year before, but we did not have time for it during the workshop. So this time it really had to happen. We started fairly standard... with natural light.

Available light
After shooting with natural light, I added a flash and gave a little fill flash.

With added flash
After that, I started adding flash units and a red gel, but I did not use the gel on our model. I placed the flash underneath my lens and created a really cool lens flare-like effect, as you can see here.

It looks almost like a kind of mist and it gave the images a really cool look

So the next time you are at a location, you should of course experiment with your angles, but also maximise your location by using different lighting setups, gels, and so on.

Push your location to the limit and get everything out of it!

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