Although there is a definite place for using bigger lights on location, speedlites / speedlights continue to be a useful way of faking light when it simply isn’t there naturally. A quick walk through the images in the gallery below:
1. Student prospectus shoot using a limited number of extras to show a busy cafe area. Dull and yellow tungsten ambient light replaced with zoomed in 1 x flash warmed up with a Honl gel, camera right. Second light camera left in background to boost cooler window light; 2. Very dark and sparse kitchen with one flash off camera right to be the window light and a tight shot over the top of a table. The starting point for the metering is the oven / hob light; 3. Student cafe again with dull tungsten replaced with “sandwich” of 2 x flash guns camera left and right (one as a backlight the other as a key light to the girls seated); 4. Flat ambient given a push with flash at low level to create some shadow detail on the cakes; 5. Location portrait with enhanced flash backlight; 6. Headshot taken in the entrance of the Marlowe Theatre by underexposing the background to black and then using a flash from camera left; 7. Property shot with flash in the bathroom because the window light was far too weak; 8. Single flash off camera left and at low power to raise the ambient gently so as not to make the bed linen too white; 9. Flat and misty day changed to autumn with a single light high and camera right with a Honl gel; 10. Very dark bedroom shot given a kick with a single flash backlight to fake sunlight. The key light is from a window camera right; 11. Same technique with raising the ambient in a property but 2 flash guns this time – one from the weak window camera left and another tucked behind a wall in the background; 12. Single light bounced off an umbrella to replaced the tungsten downlighters.
