Days Of Loss urgently needed some new band pics as they are about to launch a CD and I was happy to oblige as always! We arranged a 6pm meeting on Thursday at the Schemerlbrücke - a really cool bridge close to home I use quite often to evade traffic. Of course it turned quite cold a few days before and the wind on and around the bridge made it a freezing endeavour... In any case, I set up Speedlites on the walkway to the left and had one on my Gorillapod attached to one of the girders on the right. It was a hit and miss sort of thing because we had to jump out onto the road part between cars and I didn't really have too much time to explain exactly the poses I wanted because it was so cold!
ISO 800, f/4.0, 1/100, 17mm. Main 600EX Speedlite camera left 1/4 power, one camera right at 1/64 and one used as backlight at 1/8.
In addition, having seen some of their other media material, I added a green tint to the backlighting to give a gloomier / more industrial look to it - the pictures are for their CD booklet and media around their CD. Using Color Efex Pro I added only the tint and reduced it on their faces and clothing.
Settings as above.
We then moved about 50 metres away from the bridge, facing the train station at Nussdorf. I got the guys to sit in their van to warm up while I set up the next shot - I thought I'd like to try floodlighting it with my car's headlights. That gave me two flashes to use as backlights and one to light up their faces from the front. It was just starting to snow lightly but it was the wind that was really my worry because we had three guys with long hair who were going to fight with keeping it out of their faces. Anyway, messed about with the settings to let in enough ambient but wanted to overpower and really have bright subjects. Here's what I came up with:
ISO 3200, f/4.0, 1/40s, 33mm. Main Speedlite high at camera right at 1/1 power. Headlights of the car at camera left. Backlights at 1/8 each, one low and hidden behind the band, one visible and at head height.
I'm quite happy with this shot and I like that there are some snowflakes visible in the flash at the right edge of the picture. I got plenty of backlight in which is what I was going for and you can still see the train station and the rails so it gives you a good sense of where this was. I really love how the ground is all lit up by the car's headlights.
RSS Feed
