Flashing the Fairy

Pictures from shoot at Durban Botanical Gardens
Model: Tanja
Make-Up: own
Photographer: Henrik

Equipment : Canon 40D
Lens : 50mm f1.8
Aperture : f 10
ISO : 200
Shutter speed : 160
Flashes : Canon 580exII and 2x Canon 430 ex

Other : Manfrotto Tripods, sync cable, shoot through
umbrella and mount thingy

















Ah! Durban. Well, what can be said about it? We could say it's Africa's playground, we could say it has the world's best beaches, we could also say it is the worlds greatest HIV city and we could even say the worst politicians all hail from this city.
But today, the 31st day of this January month, in the 9th year of the 21st century, on approximately the 1st second in the 49th minute of the 10th hour, or thereabouts, I will say only Durban was @#$%^*& hot and humid.

The Botanical Gardens is one of Durban's highlights in my opinion. Many wedding photographers use the gardens as their creative shoot one-stop-shop. I can understand why. There are many great locations and different looks you can get just by moving 30 metres or so. Too bad most of the wedding photographers use about only 6 of the 100 plus spots that I can think of in the gardens to set up their shots.

Well enough moaning about the originality and creativeness of the wedding photographer and his 6 spots, I enjoy the gardens and love just going for a walk leaving the odd sync cable there and making a mad dash across town to retrieve it. etc. Seriously though, I like the surrounds and the plants are all labeled if you want to really know what they are called, and if you want they even have a guided tour. I mostly like to go and chill and sometimes take a camera along.

And now enough of the waffle, onto the pictures.

I have included a setup shot. These setup shots are a rarity. This one was taken in error. I normally plan to take a setup shot but due to (what ever factor you would like to enter into this space) I normally forget. I took this in error while I checking a setting. As mentioned the gardens have many great spots and if you go and look for it you will find this one. The tree has a hollowed out section that was just begging to have a flash placed there and used as a backdrop. With this in mind, our dear model and friend, Tanja, has been pestering us to do a fairy type themed shoot for a while. We are comfortable with her and her with us so when we go to do something like a fairy shoot with her all dressed up and me stuffing around trying to get everything just right she does not complain or get flustered she just takes it in her stride or hop depending on which bug wanted a bite.

Did I mention the bugs just loved eating Tanja, myself, my partner and my little one.

Back to pic. I wanted to kill the ambient light, and bugs, a bit (lots). So onto a tripod goes my 580 and into master it is put. A little note here : I can really understand why the pro guys use pocket wizards / sky ports because when I put a grid on the flash it did not trigger the other flashes. The reason is to do with a preflash the 580 puts out to the 430's. If the 430's don't see the actual flash from the head part, they don't go off. They don't talk with the red sensors at the bottom as some people think. So bang went the idea of just lighting very selectively.

Well, fill light the 580 will be, power was at 1/8th and zoom set to 105mm and was a far far way away. The one 430 was put facing upwards behind Tanja to light the tree at 1/4 power and at 14mm (diffuser panel out). The final one was put on a tripod on the umbrella mount thingy behind an umbrella at 1/2 power to give a nice soft light.
And then happy snapping away I went.

I am happy with what I got, but there are a few things I would have liked to do different. A bare bulb behind Tanja would have been nice (ps I forgot it at home - the tupperware thing) and the fill light perhaps a bit softer. Like behind an umbrella soft. I would like to know if the 580 would have been able set off the other flashes but I did not find out due to time, bugs, heat etc. But otherwise I'm happy. (not - I neeeeeed pocket wizards more flashes a new camera l glass ..and.....and............)