Lighting Diagram - Lisa at the lake

Sometimes, less is more, simple setups can help elevate your work to another level. For this session, I had a studio strobe setup on location and during the shoot we experienced technically difficulties. These things can and often do happen while shooting. Lights blow out, triggers won’t fire, etc. You should always have plan “B” ready to go when adversity raises its ugly head. When the strobe and triggers failed, I assembled a large diffusion panel by Lastolite. The panel is 39×72 and with the diffusion screen in place it essential gives you the look of soft window light. I love this kit and even having a second kit to help reflect light back on the subject is well worth owning.

Lisa, which I might add, is a mother of 4 , wanted to shoot to show off the progress she has made of the past year with her trainer. We decided to shoot at Bartlett Lake here in Arizona. If you are within an hour or two of the lake, it’s a great place to take the family and relax. It is also very scenic and helped to provide with nice backgrounds for this session. I had Lisa on the side of hill in the later hours of the day. The light is much nicer closer to sunset than around noon. I placed the large diffusion panel about 1 1/2 feet to the left of her paying attention to how the catchlights looked in her eyes and how the panel was boosting the light on her. The light looked amazing and soft. No need for the studio strobe in this situation as I was very happy with this simple setup.

I used the Canon 5D3 and the Canon 135L to capture the shots. If you are in the market for lenses, the Canon 135L is an amazing piece of glass. I have a lens review here if you want to see full res images captured using this lens. Well worth the investment! I was about 8-10 feet from Lisa shooting at F/3.2. This gave me enough depth of field to keep her sharp in the frame while producing the nice diffused backgrounds the Canon 135L is known for.

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