For Mother’s day, my Mom and I got a Yongnuo 560 III flash, some 603 receivers, an umbrella, and a stand. Never using an off-axis flash before, I realized I should test it out and see what we could do. This is just the basics-I wanted to see if I could get the black background during daylight hours, and a shot of Anna’s freckles and eyes-crisp. Now, I’m a total lover of natural light, but if I can use a flash to make images crisper, I’ll take it! I wing everything anyway so how bad could I do with a flash? =P
For this face shot, I knew with only one light source (the flash) I’d probably need to fill in some light on the right side of Anna’s face. We’ve got some makeshift reflectors in the Volvo’s trunk (white poster board, black poster board covered in aluminum foil) but I also still haven’t taken the snow tires out of the trunk. So I improvised and asked my Mother to hold the silver window reflector, you use in your car’s windshield, to reflect the light. While I absolutely love what that reflector did to her eyes, it didn’t reflect as much as I would have liked. Then again, true-to-life coloring on photos isn’t really my thing, so maybe I was over-analyzing the outcome. The shadow on the right of her nose just throws me off something fierce.
All-in-all I’m happy with the first real test shots with the flash and umbrella, and look forward to integrating it into our normal photo shoots!
