Sunflowers After Dark
Feb, 2019Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was take right behind our house. I live in a small rural mountain town in Colorado, and I'm lucky because behind our house we have trails that to lead to national forest land. I chose this not just for convenience, but because the type if trees that grow on this trail were a great contrast to the sunflower we were bringing.Time
It was evening, the sun was gone and it was dark dark dark, and cold! We had to use flashlights to see our way on the trail.Lighting
It was so dark out I had to use lighting, but I only used one light for this photo. I brought out one my strobes, plugged it into my vagabond, left on the standard metal reflector, and put it high and to the right of my subject.Equipment
I used my Canon 5d Markii with my 90mm TSE. The lighting used for this was the AlienBee 800 by Paul C Buff, with the standard metal reflector.Inspiration
The sunflower in the photo was the main inspiration. It was grown by the model (who was a great and close friend of mine). We ended up using it as a prop and took portraits of her with the goal of practicing simple retouching, and showing her some lighting setups. We were starting a studio together in our small mountain town, she was a great photographer, but just starting out, so I was teaching her lighting and post processing. Unfortunately, about 8 months after this photo was taken, she took her own life. This photo has a lot of sentimental value to me because of that. This photo was spontaneous, and came out beautiful. I fun memory for me to have of my beautiful friend who I miss dearly.Editing
Luckily there wasn't much post-processing done to this photo. There was some skin correction, enhanced the color of the makeup, boosted the contrast and did some dodge and burning.In my camera bag
My bag is usually pretty light. I have my trusty Canon and my favorite lens the 90mm. I have an older 28mm that works for older film Canon cameras with an adapter to use on my 5d Mark ii, and some macro extension tubes.Feedback
First bit of advice would be if your thinking of getting some lights and playing around with strobe/flash do it! It's fun, and really expands your abilities to light subjects in any kind of situation. Go outside, put yourself in a tree, or a bush, and play around in the dark! Second, if you don't have any strobe/flash available you could easily recreate this look with a lantern or flashlight. You might need an extra set of hands to hold the light steady, and you will want to use a tripod for your camera and make sure your subject can sit very still. My settings were 160 ISO, f/13, 1/160's with the strobe. With a flashlight you would want your f/stop to be the lowest you can get, your ISO set high (I like to say as high as you can manage without horrible grain/noise), and then start your shutter with 1/4s and test from there. The strength of the lantern or flashlight and the lowest f/stop you have available will determine the shutter speed.
