Dreaming (test of a new concept)

For a client shoot I have to do soon, I want to do something different, the client wants a not so standard family photo. After giving it some thought I asked her if she would like it to do something with silhouettes of her and her husband and the kids in "normal" light. As a divider I thought that foil (the type you use to cover your furniture when you are painting your living room) would be nice. And it has to be done outside.

So before I make a huge ass of my self, I decided to test the concept first on an out side location and see what kind of problems I would encounter.

 The set up:

Setup: Dreaming, a photo by Ragoem on Flickr.

The setup was pretty easy: A mobile background with white bedsheets hanging from it. In front of that two light stands with a cord between them, to hang the foil on. All secured with some guy-lines so it would not blow away in the wind. So I thought I covered all the problems. But theres always something you don't think of isn't there? Yep, in the wind the foil just ripped because it's that thin. Fortunately I had two assistants to help hold the foil down. But I know that I only have one assistant on the client shoot.

On with the lighting part: I used 4 flashes (2 LP160 and 2 5400HS) all four on the background to see if I could over power the sun the way I want. Result: in the shade: Yes, in direct sunlight: No. So it's back to the drawing board on that. But may be I already have the solution, which is to use a light colored building's shadow side as a backdrop.

Now I knew that what I wanted to know I decided to get one flash in front of Roos an the foil to light her face. And with the two assistants to hold the foil tight I asked Roos to lean into the foil and close her eyes.

Dreaming, a photo by Ragoem on Flickr.

Processed the photo in Photoshop. And see above for the result.

On stage

Trying to boost my creativity I gave my self the assignment to do a shoot with all the PG6s slave flashes I could get. I started out with 4 but ended up with 10 PG6s's.
If possible I only wanted to use the PG6s (all in frame) but if necessary I would use other flashes (out of the frame). (I believe that the result counts and not the equipment you use. Yes, it can be a challenge to use only some flashes, but keeping the PG6s in frame and get good result can be a in some cases impossible.)
The first idea I had was to lay Anne on some kind of stage, with some floodlights at her feet. Because I had 10 flashes I decided it would be nice to place a row of light behind/above her.

On stage, a photo by Ragoem on Flickr.

I knew I had a wooden beam with holes to fit the spigot on top of a light stand. But the beam was not painted.  So out came the paint to make it black so it would blend into the background.
Now I needed a "stage". I still had an old board with holes from a bed somewhere. And lent me some crates from the the local supermarket to put the board on. The background fabric would continue over the "stage".
To ad some theatrical atmosphere to the photo, we garbed our Mister cool smoke machine and some ice from our fridge to create the low smoke in front of Anne.


Another idea I had was to make a circle of lights around Anne.
So what do i need? I have 10 light so I need 10 light stands.
I arranged the light in such way that they were low in front of her and high above her behind her.

Ring of light, a photo by Ragoem on Flickr.

But now I had a problem, the light in her face was coming from below, so i decided to use an extra flash.
I grabbed my GN300AD with the snoot set it to 1/2 power and aimed it on Anne's face, left from the camera facing down.
At the end, I asked Anne if she would hold one on the flashes in her hand and look into it while I made the picture. We made only a few of these ones because the PG6s's have a lot of power that close, and that is not pleasant for the eyes.

Hold the light, a photo by Ragoem on Flickr.

There  is still room for improvement but after all I think I succeeded on my own assignment.