For this shoot with Dajia I wanted to see how effectively I could balance one strobe with window light. I started off by getting an ambient exposure for the window light, making sure that my exposure was set around 1/10 of a second. Then I turned on the strobe and powered it up until it was bright enough to match the window light. I shot a few frames with the black backdrop and then dropped the white sweep to shoot a few more. It never ceases to amaze me just how versatile one light can be.
For the next set I wanted to create a dappled light effect, similar to sunlight reflected off of windows. I actually came across this effect by accident. I bought some mirror stickers used for crafting, which I adhered to a piece of cardboard. I had scored the cardboard on the back which made it an easy-to-carry tri-fold reflector. The happy accident came about in that the corrugated cardboard texture created the dappled light effect when lit with a bright light source, in this case a flash. The hard part is aiming the flash at just the right angle to hit the reflector and light the subject without spilling directly onto them. This means flagging the light. As you can see in the setup shot below I positioned my strobe slightly behind the large octa box, which acted as an improvised flag. After getting a few good shots with the reflector by itself, I experimented by clipping colored gels to the reflector to see what would happen. The results varied quite a bit depending on which part of the reflector was struck by the light. The results give the appearance of stained glass, and look like the shot was lit with 2 or 3 light sources, rather than just one.
