Desiree Troia {30 Photoshoot Speedlight Challenge, Set #2}

Desiree at mission Trails regional park, natural lighting

This is my third model of all time, a lovely Desire Troia. She and I went to Mission Trails Regional Park and did two locations with a costume change.

Click Here to read more for more of my photos of desiree

shaded area, single source flash with beauty dish

I had tragedy strike when my strobe ran out of battery early on. I felt like all of my creative planning went out the window and I did the best I could with what I had.

Desiree, on the other hand, didn't have any mishaps. She was a complete pro.

The first location was in a covered hall where they kept party rental equipment in the visitors center at mission trails regional park. The cobbling on the wall was absolutely beautiful, and I really wanted to bounce some light off of the ceilings and walls. Like I learned during my milk jug experiment, the lighting can be really beautiful when I take off the beauty dish and use the walls as a natural diffuser.

The set up for this location was a beauty dish located directly to the photograph right with a foam board reflector set up to the models left.

Personally, I think the photos from my small speedlight segment came out stunningly. I feel like I got to re-create some of the photos I saw in the Speedlighters Handbook, which I have been puzzling over for a while.

Then, as the story goes, My speedlight ran out of battery so we did a costume change and took it outside. I used natural lighting like a chump and spent about 10 times longer retouching the photos. I felt like I was a slave to Alex, the lighting assistant holding a white foam board to direct the light.

Beautiful Posing.

This photo isn't for the model, its for ME.

Telephoto'ed beauty shot at 80mm.

In Summary...

I experienced the sting of poor preparation and saw just how important lighting was to a photoshoot. I can't believe I spent so much time without external lighting.

I think I came up with some pretty good photos, but they could have been made many times more excellent with even lighting with external flash.

I am extremely happy with the section that I was able to use my speedlight. I used the head position angles, the diffusion dish, went bare back, and bounced of a reflector. The result looked very put together.

The 30 Photoshoot speedlight challenge is a Self Challenge where I attempt to learn as much as I can about single source lighting before I graduate to adding a second source to my kit! The reward of course is a second speedlight. I do my best to be reflective about my experiences to make them as instructive as possible. Read more about the 30 photoshoot challenge and follow my journey by clicking on the links below.