Mastering Your Speedlight Class at CCE

Left: Caroline by Les Harvey using an SB910 speedlight and honeycomb grid to limit the spread of light. At right: Emma, again by Les Harvey using a far softer, modified speedlight source to present this sensitive portrait.

Water being sloshed into a glass - this was an exceptional result from Tanya Kastoumis. Without an audio trigger this technique is easy to set up but a matter of persistence and repetition to get the 'moment'.

Portrait of Kristina using an Orbis ring flash adaptor, shot by Beate WildnerThe advantage of this process is that the 360 degree illumination around the lens produces a soft, indistinct shadow around the subject.

Obviously Beate like the Orbis ring flash adaptor - here's another striking portrait of Emma, one of the students taking part in this class.

Team effort!
To combine the potential of a single light portrait plus a bit of background interest, we fired a speedlight behind the model towards the camera (Beate at right, Emma at left).
Two assistants sprinkled flour in between model and speedlight at the moment the shot was taken to give additional highlights to the black background.
(see the "how it was done" picture at the bottom of this post).

Another great result from Tanya Kastoumis
Because of the backlighting, it's necessary to punch as much reflected light back into the front of the model to lighten the face...

Two more cracking flash portraits taken in the Uni grounds.
Caroline by Beate Wildner at left and Emma Foster by Les Harvey at right.

A great example of how a simple and inexpensive honeycomb grid can stylise a portrait
This looks like a still from a film. Kristina, shot by Emma Foster.

In this nice multicoloured portrait Emma Foster used red gels over the back speedlight left-hand side, and nothing on the front flash which adds a little more natural light to thew face.

Camper product shot from Emma Foster
Using nothing more than a Caonon speedlight and a honeycomb grid to achieve this impressive-looking studio shot.

Fun product shot from Beate - a couple of remedial balms and their packaging
Shot using a speedlight fired through a translucent scrim to soften the shadows and provide ore of an even illumination.

Amazing what you can create in nothing more than a regular office location, several speedlights and a lot of assistants...