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Colorado Adventure and Editorial Photographer

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One Light Wonder

July 6, 2013 • Blog, Photo Shoots

A lot of my photography takes place after I hike into a location.  For this reason, I am constantly looking for ways to streamline what I carry.  Recently I was going rock climbing with my family, and really wanted to shoot a few images of my son.  He is now the ‘real climber’ in our family, and I can only wonder how far he will go.  But in terms of shooting, the cliff was a hike in, and I didn’t want to haul major lighting gear with me.  I knew the cliff would be in the shade, and I wanted to add some drama via flash to the climber.  After much thought, here is what I took; D4, 24-120mm, one 11′ Manfrotto lightstand, one Lastolite triflash bracket, one SB900, and one Pocket Wizard Flex TT5 and Mini TT1.  I figured one SB900 zoomed out to 200mm could easily add a little sparkle to the climber.

I used the Pocket Wizard for wireless radio speedlight control, no line of sight needed.  One problem I ran into was the rocky ground was too uneven for my light stand.  To solve this problem I just clipped it into a bolt on the wall to keep it from falling over.  I set the ambient light to about 1 stop under exposed to create an edgy look; the shaded cliff had very flat lighting.  I got a few shots I liked including the one at the top of this blog.  One light speedlight can do a lot if you give it a chance.

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