21.01.10
Creating portraits with portable flash
A maestro of creative lighting, Neil Turner took images EXCLUSIVELY for Photography Monthly. In his first masterclass, he takes his lights to the beach to show you how to create striking portraits with portable flash.
The shoot
Neil’s absolute best time of day to shoot pictures is dusk. Since the weather in the UK is unpredictable, especially in November, he keeps the BBC weather centre as a favourite on his mobile phone. By midday on the chosen day of the shoot, he knew they were on. Knocking a golf ball around – even with skill and accuracy – on a public beach is dangerous. There will always be people around so Neil and his nephew carried a plastic club just in case they couldn’t use the real thing. The yellow shaft of the plastic club also acted as a back-up if the stainless steel shaft of the real club didn’t show up too well against the darkening sky. When they arrived at the beach, no matter how hard he tried, Neil couldn’t use a softbox or an umbrella so went with multiple light sources using standard (and almost aerodynamic) reflectors. In the end he used three light sources: two Elinchrom heads with the standard 13cm reflectors and a Canon Speedlight 580 EXII set to 24mm on the manual zoom triggered using a Skyport receiver set to the same channel as the one built into the Elinchrom pack.
Train hard, fight easy
“Preparation and anticipation are the name of the game with a shoot like this. I went with my standard kit of two Canon EOS 5D MkII bodies, three Canon lenses (16-35 f2.8L, 24-70 f2.8L and 70-200 f2.8L IS), a couple of 580 EXII speedlights and an Elinchrom Ranger Quadra Kit. I asked Terry to wear his brightest golfing gear, and bring his sand iron and a couple of balls as well as a child’s yellow plastic golf club, a sponge ball and a golf umbrella. By the end of the shoot my kit was covered in sand. You have to be really careful when you clean it off. Don’t try to wipe it off – use an old-fashioned blower brush or compressed air. When you get home, use a vacuum cleaner with a cotton handkerchief over the nozzle to get the rest off.”
Try it out for yourself
The important thing is to keep the flash-to-subject distance constant. The flash element of the exposure is controlled by that distance, and the subject moving closer to the light or moving further away will alter the exposure.
Take a light reading for the sky. Before sunset you will be struggling to get enough flash power to overcome exposures like 1/200th at f16 on ISO 200. As the sun sets, the ambient exposure for the sky will drop off dramatically and you need to keep monitoring the reading for the sky and changing the flash output accordingly.
Balance the amount of flash so the foreground and the subject are properly lit. Remember the flash exposure is controlled by the aperture and not the shutter speed. Use the power output and the flash-to-subject distance to control the amount of light getting to the subject.
If you have one, use a flash meter to measure the flash output of each light source. If you don’t, take test shots and judge the exposure from your camera’s LCD screen (even if you go on to shoot film). Modern DSLRs have great screens. Once you are used to your kit, you know what to look for.
If you are unsure how to proceed, add one flash at a time. Shoot a few frames then add a second or a third as you see fit. There is no formula here; all you need to do is to fill your creative vision.
There are three lights in this picture. Two from the left-hand side of the frame – both Elinchrom Ranger Quadra heads running from the same pack. The main light was set at 200w/s and the other at 100w/s. There is a third light source slightly behind Terry and to the right of the frame, which is a Canon Speedlight set at half power and at the 24mm zoom position. My advice is to bracket your exposures. Underexpose the sky by 0.5, 1, 1.5 and even 2 stops to get very different effects.
Watch out for unplanned moments. This frame was never planned. It was shot at 1/200th at f14 on ISO 200. There’s a small amount of flare, but the moment is often more important than technical perfection.
As it gets darker and you have to use longer exposure (we went to 0.5 seconds on this shoot) to get detail in the sky, action gets harder to freeze if it’s against the sky. That’s why we moved onto some fun images with Terry paddling in the sea and using the umbrella.
Tips from the top
- Shoot with everything on manual (apart from the focusing). With this kind of photography, control is everything. Set the ISO speed, the aperture, the shutter speed and the white balance. Set the flash output yourself; even if your system has clever TTL.
- Choose your location carefully and note down where the sun will be at the chosen time of day. Get there in plenty of time to set up and get some early test shots.
- Make sure you know when sunset is. The window of opportunity for this kind of shot is about half an hour before and three quarters of an hour after the sun hits the horizon. Watch the weather forecast and agree a time by which you will either decide to go ahead or postpone.
- Take what you think you will need and take whatever else you just might need, and make sure you are familiar with the equipment.
- Ensure the subject doesn’t get cold, hot, bored or distracted. Talk to them, give them a simple task to do,or do whatever it takes to keep them focused. Explain the idea to them and listen to their suggestions, even if you discount them politely.
Neil’s Kit Bag
- Lowepro Stealth 650AW camera bag
- Two Canon EOS 5D MkII bodies
- Canon 16-35 f2.8L, 24-70 f2.8L, 70-200 f2.8L IS lenses
- Two Canon 580exII flash units
- A Canon 1.4x extender
- Spare batteries for the cameras and flash units
- Coloured gels
- A notebook and pens
- Maglite torch and a Swiss Army Knife
- Several Honl flash accessories
- A copy of my public liabilities insurance certificate
- A copy of the ACPO guidelines on photography in public
- Eight 8GB SanDisk CompactFlash cards in a Think Tank
- Pixel Pocket Rocket wallet
- Warm clothing, Goretex jacket and trousers
- Timberland boots and coffee – plenty of coffee!
Lighting kit
- A LowePro Stealth 650AW bag with an Elinchrom Ranger Quadra kit consisting of 1x pack, 2x A heads, spare cables, spare battery and plenty of Skyport triggers and receivers.
- Colour correction and effects gels
- A Sekonic L-328 flash meter
- A folding Westcott 36in shoot-through white umbrella
- Lowepro Stealth 650AW with three Manfrotto lighting stands
- A 24 x 36in Chimera softbox
- Apple MacBook Pro laptop loaded with software
- Vodafone USDPA dongle
- SanDisk FireWire 800 UDMA card reader
- Two LaCie 320GB Rugged Hard Drives
- Plenty of blank CDs and DVDs
BE professional
“Any job, be it personal or professional, starts with a brief. About 95% of the time, the brief for a paid commission comes from a magazine picture editor or art director. We will chat about what they are looking for. I will suggest ideas and then we will agree on an approach. It is just as important to set your own brief when you are shooting
personal work. By setting boundaries and aims, you will be able to focus on getting the image you set out to achieve. The next step is to communicate well with whoever you are photographing. You need them to work with you, so tell them what the location is like and what they will be wearing ahead of the shoot day.
Clothing is so important – it really helps the creative process if the subject is dressed interestingly, so spend time discussing this and make sure you have choices on the day. When you arrive at the location, assess lighting, weather and clothing as you chat to the subject.
Getting people relaxed is crucial, and getting them to trust you as a creative photographer is probably even more important. Setting lights up is a process that can take time, and you have to keep up a flow of conversation. I always accept a cup of coffee or a glass of water because it gives your subject something to think about other than the trauma of being photographed.”
Neil's word of wisdom
“Once I've got a camera in my hands, I truly start to be creative. Everything that goes before is merely preparation. The creative time is while shooting, having ideas and executing them. Knowing when to stop is the hardest thing to learn. Subjects give off signals that they've had enough and it's rarely a good idea to push them beyond that point. I try to leave them thinking that it has been fun and not at all traumatic.”
Biography: Neil Turner
Born in Bournemouth in 1964, Neil Turner has been working professionally since 1986. He spends much of his time shooting executive portraits and editorial commissions for magazines and newspapers, and has been commissioned by a range of PR, commercial and editorial clients. He also writes about photography and teaches across the UK in universities and colleges. He is also vice-chairman of the British Press Photographers' Association. He works out of London and Bournemouth.
www.dg28.com
This feature is from the January 2010 issue
Back issues can be ordered by calling 01858 438840 or by sending an email to photographymonthly@subscription.co.uk
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