Image (Steve..) Taken 07/05/2011 – 1/100sec, F8, ISO 100 – Canon 430EXII 1/2+0.3ev

As I looked outside the first thing I noticed was the Sky, cool dramatic looking clouds other wise know as typical British weekend weather. I knew I wanted to shoot with it in the background and underexpose it for that really dramatic look, crap I need a model.. no chance! so a quick call to my good friend Steve who by the way is the Farther of my two God sons Zakk and Saul, and is a kick ass guitar player.

Subject arranged I went to check the exposure of the sky (this was at 4pm) F13 and 1/200sec, ISO100, ok I need to wait – not enough flash power for the kind of composition I want with a single Canon 430EX II.

After some waiting (about 1 1/2 hours) I headed over to meet Steve and walk down the road to a local rec/field, now I only had 15 minuets to figure out a location, background that included the sky and how I was going to light it. The trees you can see Silhouetted in the shot caught my interest and we set up about 20ft in front of them. Its pretty windy so no chance of flying a light modifier with out it being destroyed or taking me with it, so I went with a bare Canon 430EX II speedlite high up on a 13ft stand. After working out my framing I placed Steve framed in the trees to hide Silhouetted houses/chimneys in the background, found my exposure that would underexpose the sky by about 1 stop and light Steve well, grabbed a few frames before packing up and heading home. The above shot is the one I selected, as a result another friend of mine Mike wants a dramatic photograph of him making, no problem Mike I'm looking forward to it.

The take away’s from this are, 1. Don’t have a model (call a friend) 2. Know your gear so you can work quickly. 3.You don’t have to travel far to find a cool location and shot.

Thank you Steve Dude (i always call him that) for your time and friendship.

Rick