All lit up.

Sometimes you hit a mark you've set and you get to check that off your list. Last week this happened for me. I was able to create this look I had been hoping to for some time. It came with some practice, a couple new tricks and another little bit of gear for my camera.

You can see in these shots of Ashley and Bryan that the background is under-exposed (darker) and they are lit to normal exposure, which makes them really stand out as the focal point. I also processed the images with a really warm tone which I am really liking right now. I think it helps to convey the emotional of the image.

The cool thing here is you can adjust the background exposure as dark or bright as you like. Darker is more dramatic and that works well for some images. I think its good to have a range though. You can easily over-do things with all that drama... 

The day before doing the portraits of Ashley and Bryan, my friend Daryl helped me get some practice shots as I didn't want to be testing new equipment and ideas with clients. The new gadget that makes this shot easier for me is a flash tether cord or ETTL cord. This allows your camera to control the flash from a distance and operate up to maximum shutter speed. Normally a flash will only operate up to a shutter speed of around 1/250th of a second. Not much good for outdoors in the sun. I had been using radio transmitters to signal my flashes but that requires running back and forth to the flash unit to make adjustments and they didn't allow the high shutter speed flash either.

Unfortunately the test shoot was short lived. The wind picked up quickly (see photo above - Daryl is holding the flash from blowing over) and the rain soon followed. So we packed up as fast as possible and I got a couple shots to make sure I was going to be ready for Ashley and Bryan. Now that I know I can achieve this "look", I have a lot of projects in mind!

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