Hey everybody.
Well this was a weekend of firsts. Today saw me down on the beach at Point Peron, Rockingham. I had a couple of models lined up to shoot some images for my catalogue that I have been wanting to finish for a while now.
I have been down to Point Peron before – but that was a while ago. So I took my new #1 assistant (and great photographer in her own right) Sandy down there yesterday just to have a look around and suss out a few locations, and we finished the day with a photography lesson on the beach. It was a great arvo. But I am really glad we went down to have a look around…
You see, the last time I was there the beaches were great. Nice rocky outcrops and (mostly) clear blue water. But not yesterday. Noooo. Instead there was seaweed. Lots of stinky smelly seaweed. Seaweed everywhere. Ok, you get the point. So my perfect little spot was ruined. Sandy and I looked at a few alternate locations but I was not really happy with any of them.
It was only by chance that whilst waiting for one of the models to turn up this afternoon I spotted a little teeny bit of clean(ish) beach just a little bit off the beaten track that was surrounded by dead trees. It looked pretty cool from the access way so we all hiked across the sand until we reached the spot. And it was worth it.
Ok, so that’s not really revolutionary right? We’ve all seen photos of nice models on the beach. But you see, I was never really game to tackle this kind of photography without bringing a barrage of flash equipment with me. Triggers, softboxes, beauty dishes, the whole nine yards. But for this shoot I was determined (and with some encouragement from #1) to try and utilize the natural light and step right out of my comfort zone.
I have long been envious of guys like Chase Jarvis, Louis and Jonathan Pang who seem to be able to work with natural light like it’s no big deal. They just seem to be able to make the most amazing pictures with just their camera’s and a bit of white cardboard. Jonathan has become a dear friend and mentor to me of late so I was kinda determined that I would give it a go this time, embrace the natural light.
Ok, so for now that’s enough ramblings of a sleepy photographer. Time for a quick run-down of the images. The shot at the top of the post is my favorite from the afternoon. This wasn’t a posed shot. I had merely asked Serena to walk up the beach to a pre-determined spot so I could photograph her on the way back down the beach toward me – backlit all the way by the now heavily setting sun. So this is actually one of a series of test shots. I had set the camera to manual exposure, f/4.5 @ 1/400th second shutter speed and spot metered off Serena’s back. I had locked the camera in manual as I knew that as she walked back down the beach toward me as planned the setting sun would be somewhere in the frame, but it would move about a little bit as I took the shots depending on how I rotated the camera as she walked toward me. So this just ensured that the exposure would remain consistent as I took the images – simple.
The next image in the blog was taken momentarily before the first image. We had been working down the other end of the beach and I could see the sun setting quite low in the sky. The camera was also in manual mode for this image; still at f/4.5 but I had backed the shutter speed off to 1/250th of a second as Serena wasn’t quite behind the sun as I had hoped. So, spot metering again, this time I set the camera +1 stop over exposed according to the inbuilt meter as I really wanted to see the edge light from the sun around Serena’s body. It worked!
The image just to the right was one of the first for the afternoon. Once again – this is 100% natural light. No flash – no fill. My Nikon D700 was in [A] Aperture Priority mode with the aperture set to f/2.8 with the lens zoomed in all the way to 70mm. I kept the metering mode to [Centre-weighted Average] for this series of images as I was using the flash on and off depending on the composition and where I was standing in amongst the trees. It also had the effect however of allowing a little more brightness into the scene to which this shot is the result.
So, thats three for three so far that do not include a single pulse of flash on my behalf. I could get used to this!
The last shot in today’s blog post is also the last shot I took this afternoon. Literally. And yes, as you can plainly see, I used flash for this one. You see those hills behind Serena? Well they were blocking the sun which had now set behind them, so no more direct yummy sunlight was being cast on the models. So with the camera still in manual mode, I set the shutter speed to 1/250th of a second. This ensured that the sky would remain fairly dark as the sun was really low and out of the way by this point. Aperture was set to f/7.1 to keep the flash under control and hey presto – we have a winner. Easy peesy – right?!
To finish up for today – I have to say I am kinda sorry. Sorry that I didn’t try to use natural light more affectively sooner. Sure – the images in this blog post are not perfect – but I really like them. A lot. Go to my Facebook Page to view a few other images taken on today’s shoot; some with flash and some without. I have a couple more shoots coming up in a week or so that I plan to try using natural light a bit more. Like they say; practice makes perfect. I really did love the light at the beach this afternoon…
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