blood, sweat and tears
Good shots some times take a lot more effort than can be discerned just by looking at the picture itself. There are a lot of photos on Instagram now by photographers that also include behind the scenes pics or video to give you an idea of just what went into a shot.
I like this picture of Derrick I took recently and even though it's not my favourite from our photo session, it took the most work. I wanted a small rim light to highlight his hair that was in shadow from the main light and although it should've been just a case of turning it on and positioning it, 1) I'd left my spare light stand at home. 2) my flash trigger wouldn't recognise the new light.
Luckily, I had bought the user manual for my Godox speedlight with me as I had tried every possible button combination to no avail waiting a good 15 minutes...
Once I got the flash working, we found a place Derrick could sit in range of the hair light. However, I had decided I wasn't happy with the main light in a softbox on a regular light stand just lighting him from in front. I wanted to light him from above. This required extending the light stand to its maximum of about 3.5 metres and balancing it on my right shoulder so that it could reach over him. At the same time, to bring a little light into the shadows, I placed a reflector in front of me and angled it up using my left foot.
I took the photo using my Canon 1ds iii, which isn't exactly light, all while balancing the equipment and steadying the softbox with my spare(?) hand to stop it spinning round under its own weight.
I wish I had brought more equipment with me and/or an assistant to take cool looking behind the scenes photos that don't make me look like a chaotic one man band!
