Show Me The Light

I am not going to star in an infomercial, or be an advocate for any particular brand of light at any time in this blog post. 

I am just going to show you what I use in the studio, have become very familiar with, and have grown to love.

My Godox RS600p Strobe is my primary, go-to light.  It is portable and has an outdoor battery pack, which means I can also use it outside.

It makes life easier for me on many days.

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I used this light as my primary in every single indoor shoot this past year, and in a few outdoor senior sessions on very gloomy days.

This week, I expect to be finished with all of the Christmas and Holiday card photo sessions.  All orders will have been placed and most will have been delivered.  Because Thanksgiving was so close to the end of the month this year, I am behind in my own work, including my own Christmas cards.

So tonight I tackled a session with Lilah in the studio, using the two sources of light I have come to rely on.  Below is the second.

This is a Yongnuo 568EX 4 Channel Flash, which I use off camera with many different types of modifiers.  For this session, I used a white shoot through umbrella.  (This technical stuff is for the photographers in the crowd, but for those of you who may not be well-versed in the lingo, just think "off camera flash."  What kind doesn't matter right now.)

I am going to show you some out takes from the session using the Godox as my primary light and the Yongnuo as my secondary light. They are out takes, because I am not dressed for holiday photos, and Lilah had her own plans for "helping" me out.

I normally sit in the scene and take a test shot with a remote trigger to get a feel for the light.  Even though I have used a light meter most times, you never know the nuances of that light until you shoot.  Lilah's plan was to sit with me and see if she could smell my head.  Main light is camera left.  Secondary light is camera right.

I shoot with a Nikon D800, so I set my camera in Commander Mode and it takes care of making sure all of the lights flash when they should.  It took me loads of research, four classes and many hours of trials to sync my camera and my lights correctly, and to understand the settings.  Even after all of that, there is still much to learn.

Lilah is such a help, isn't she?  I was not letting her smell my head just yet.  I took a few of these test shots, then got up and checked the camera to see the lighting.  I only tweaked it a little, then sat back down with my remote and took the photo below.

It's no secret that my granddaughter called Lilah "La La" until she was almost 5 years old.  We often call Lilah "La La" now, so it seemed appropriate for Fa La La to appear behind her.  I wanted this image to be fun, so I brought up the power in the secondary light a bit.  Lilah did finally get her wish to smell my head.  It's a favorite pastime, especially when we come from someplace where she hasn't been.  I wonder if our hair holds the scent of all the places we have been?  Or maybe it's the closest thing to fur that we have, so it's familiar.

I am not going to show you what I decided on, ultimately, for the final Lilah Christmas image, in today's blog.  BOO, right?  But I will feature it on my Facebook business page the week between Christmas and New Years Day. So tune in to see how it all turned out!

In the spirit of "I've shown you my lights, now you show me yours," there should be lots more "light" interpretations in today's blog circle.  Start with Angela Schneider of Noses & Toes Pet Photography in Spokane and North Idaho.  And whatever holiday you celebrate, let there be light!