Thursday, March 25, 2010

I got sunshine on a cloudy day

Jonquils

I noticed yesterday that the jonquils and daffodils are about ready to bloom in my backyard. I made a note to get out there today and shoot the not-quite-there blossoms in the warm light of the early morning sun. Only one problem. It rained last night and the day started out gray.

So I manufactured my own sunshine. I put a gold diffusion dome on a flash unit, placed a 1/4 inch grid on top of that to create directional light, clamped the flash unit to a spare piece of 2x4 lumber, placed it on the ground about four feet to the right of the flowers and fired it with a wireless trigger on the camera.

Voila. Highlights a-plenty with a touch of backlight on the blossoms and enhanced color in the background. With a nice warm glow to boot.

Daffodil

Have you seen those photos in magazines that show the sunshine streaming in through a window? Chances are, that light was created by a gelled flash unit or two or three. I gotta do me that sometime.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

2 comments:

Scott Law said...

Really nice job on these. I really enjoyed your explanation of how you did it. I'll be back often to enjoy and learn.

Hillary said...

Two things:
1. Beautiful photo! (as always!)
2. Your explanation of the lengths you took to get that photo exhausted me just reading it! :)

No pain, no gain!