So a little ball snuck up on me (year 10’s) which is a little bit of a rehearsal for all concerned.

As usual I over thought the process, but did make sure to take a few options, not knowing what to expect*. My intention was to keep it simple, but to be prepared for literally anything. The full seniors ball has red carpet arrivals, formal groups and dancing/mingling shots, all curtailed to some degree over the last year or so because of COVID, but I have still prepared for the full deal, knowing that even a little bit of it has the same needs as a lot of it.

This was not that event. I was asked to try to hit a middle road between the red carpet arrivals and the formal shots. Basically semi-formal arrivals.

Arriving early (always the number one recommendation for any photo gig), I had a couple of choices in the space. The overly well lit, boring and busy front foyer was a no go, but the actual room was enormous (bigger than the senior’s more formal space), so I decided to try an idea I had wanted to try for a while, to use the actual venue’s ceiling and stage lights as a back drop. I set up just inside the door facing across the room at the stage.

The technical process for this style is easy enough.

Expose for an effectively black frame with only the lights showing (see above). Adjust the shutter speed to get the right ambient balance. The ISO and aperture will match the flash settings and passively affect the overall exposure, but the shutter speed will do the heavy lifting there. In this case about 1/30th, ISO 200, F2.8, 1/8th power, but it varied about a stop depending on group size etc. The slow shutter is not an issue unless you are getting too much ambient, then blur may creep in.

Blur the lights out with shallow depth of field (f2.8 focussed at 3m with my 12-40, remembering that this is f5.6 depth of field on a full frame). If I had fixed group sizes, I would have switched to a faster prime.

Light the primary space with……..something.

Fill it with…….something else.

Use the ambient lights as back light and possibly, if you are lucky, some rim/separation lighting also.

*

I started with my new 26” double baffle deep soft box. Coverage was too small for bigger groups.

Then I tried the even newer 32” single baffle, bought to get a cheap S-Clamp. Slightly less focussed but still too tight. One issue was height of the little stands (2m), reducing the possible angles. Lesson learned.

Switched to a 42” shoot through, that has managed to have a start at every gig so far. Lesson learned.

Switched that to reflected configuration again which has softer “hot spots”. Lesson learned.

Fill with a 42” shoot through lower on axis, which was fine, except my camera could not see to focus! I disable the focus assist because it does not always work focussing off centre and I do not like it distracting subject sin quiet situations. The camera’s all focus fine in all but complete darkness. Darkness like I was seeing this time.

What to do? I tried a trick that came to me on the spot, simply because I packed every option that came to mind and they were there, talking to me, like so many urgent, noisy little friends. I set up my 480 LED just off axis opposite side to the key, as both a fill light and a focus assist light. The light was dialled to maximum warmth (3200k), matching the golden lighting from the ceiling and tables and was running at only 10%, which was it seemed plenty to do the job.

This one light was providing colour balance, fill and fixing a focussing issue (the camera, an EM10 Mk2, only missed once and that was a huge group well back and out of the light’s range).

How did it go?

Keeping in mind I was using ($au) a $120 flash, $50 controller**, $100 LED, $45 worth of stands, a $30 brolly and a budget camera, I got some of the most consistent and attractive artificial light images I have produced. I am genuinely frustrated i cannot post any, because some are really beautiful, but if any are posted by the school I will revisit this.

The flash worked flawlessly until the batteries got tired (1/8th power 400 odd shots in “fast three’s” with, it turned out, not fresh batts :0), but a quick unit change and all was good.

The LED hardly used any power, and the whole rig handled, with only a little fiddle (power upped to 1/4 and a slight turn of the brolly), groups up to 10 wide. These were a little dark towards the edges, but post fixed that easily enough. If doing this again, I would have a second “B” light on axis turned on as needed for extra grunt and coverage at the expense of nice directionality.

The 42” (Godox) shoot through (with a little LED fill) gave really nice warm, gently soft, semi brilliant, but clean light when used in reverse mode (reflective) and I only lose a stop of power maximum. This just seems to work better for me, striking a balance between the more brilliant “hot spot” prone shoot through and flatter soft box light.

Lessons learned (some again);

• The same light modifiers keep coming to the top of the pile (42” shoot through’s reversed and 4’ soft boxes).

• The new stands are great for ancillary lights, but I need at least one taller one for the key.

• I have tons of light/power/coverage, so no need to carry the lot.

• Be prepared to be versatile.

• Go with your gut. Experiment, but be there early enough to do so.

• Concerning the above two, have a few plans and ideas, but let them go as needed.

• Don’t worry, because it all seems to come together in the end.

• Constant light is great for a variety of uses, but not necessarily as the key light.

• Diffuse the LED because they are bright.

Today I have totally re-imagined my lighting kit(s), which deserves a post of it’s own.

*I decided to trial my “amazing disappearing lighting studio” of 3 super-lite light stands, 2 soft boxes, a pair of 42” umbrellas, three YN560 flash units and a 480 LED. The whole set comes in at about 3kg.

**Tooling around looking for other spots to set up, I forgot to turn the controller off and it fired the flash multiple times from across the room, about 70m.