Back as a Strobist

I have been learning a lot with photography on the past months and I think its worth to re-activate this place and post my learned lessons. I was playing around with Strobist102... I have tried some of the exercises..  

First, Winnie had a flash pointing to his face (same hight as his eyes), very close by. Good! The background is dark as it should be! The power was reduced to 1/32:

Then, I put the flashgun at 3m from Winnie with 1/4 power... now the light falls of behind the small thing. Also not bad.  Notice on the picture below that there is less contrast on Winnies skin.

Tip: For every meter you walk the flash far from your subject, you double the flash power (or work your aperture)

 

Then I bounced the flash on the (white) wall behind me, some 4 meters far from Winnie! 1/2 of power and almost the entire battery gone. Wow! So soft! Too soft for my next assignment.. no shadows at all! Winnies skin looks like a flat surface. Good for a model or a bride but a bit boring.. I need more spice! Its not a bride after all!

Time to try the first (silver) umbrella... now having a new model: Marcel! The umbrella is a small one (33cm) and I have put it "pouring" the light down on him, very close by (1m). Its a very realistic approach, but it won't help the women! The contrast is a bit high... and I don't like the shadow behind him...

Hummm, lets get the umbrella 3 meters far away... that gives me a REAL MAN! No brides, no romance. Just a man, BANG! But I did not have lots of ambient light on the room, which is something I will have on my next assignment, so....

My next step: I went to get a big 44cm white (transparent) umbrella and strobed through it and respecting a bit the outside light coming through the window and now I have the effect I was looking for! Real people with a bit of ambient light!

1/100 f1.4 50mm ISO 200

I have metered for the outside -2 stops. The flash gun was 45o from Marcel, 1,5m to his left, on the same high of his eyes, 1/32 of power.  Tomorrow I will try this trick on the window at 15PM to learn how to balance the outside light with the flash power.

Conclusion:

1) Size does matter! If you are going to portrait a real person, no McDreammies (for that use a bounced light), but you still need to give some real feeling to it without lots of drama, choose for a big and soft light source. 

2) Take care to not photograph yourself reflected on the glas as I did, moron! 

PS: Wouldn't you marry him as well?