Off-Camera Flash as a Main Light

This ancient wooden door on an Italian castle was very interesting as a potential extreme close up. The challenge facing me was the extremely flat, overcast lighting. None of the wonderful texture of the wood was defined...and the rustic brass ring was almost camouflaged against the similar value of the dark background.

The solution was to increase the contrast and keep an authentic look to the direction of light. One possibility was to use a pop-up reflector. But that wouldn't have had the desired effect in this extremely soft, flat light. Just not enough there to bounce efficiently. An off-camera flash seemed to be the logical choice....and the only place to position the flash head was to the right of the Brass Ring...no room to the left. I wanted the resulting image to have a nice feel of directional light, without extreme contrast and deep shadows added to an already dark subject. So, by attaching a small soft box to the flash head we were able to achieve this precisely. I carry this LumiQuest bounce attachment with me at all times...it's extremely lightweight, attaches with velcro and folds flat to fit into the large rear pocket of my vest.

I was shooting at a fast enough shutter speed to eliminate all the ambient light. So, all we have left is the nice light from the large source, in very close.

Thanx to David Fisher from Bogen for the "action shot"