Working with atrocious lighting conditions - Part II

by Avery Wong

Welcome back to part two of my two part series about working with atrocious lighting conditions. Here I give real world examples of how I managed to get great photographs even when the environment doesn't quite offer optimal shooting conditions. 

Continuing from my previous post, found here, we were trying to figure out what we can do get some properly lit photos at this wedding location that has much less than ideal lighting conditions. We're talking about at night, in a high ceiling warehouse with black curtains along every wall. 

Tough lighting conditions all over the place!

There were four things in this scene I bounced my flash off of to obtain some excellent photos, I discussed the first two in the previous post, so onto number three! Even though the walls themselves were covered in black cloth, absorbing massive amounts of light, I was able to still use them to achieve enough bounce to get a nice soft diffusion. Ratcheting up my ISO to 4000-6400 and cranking up the speed light to maximum brightness, I said screw it and bounced it off the black cloth anyway. Black absorbs light, but the cloth isn't a perfect black, some light still gets reflected. Normally this wouldn't work very well, unless it is in an already dark environment where any amount of light is more sensitive to your sensor since I was shooting with a higher ISO.

This technique may require some color correction in post.

Alright! The final piece to the puzzle, secret technique number four! Much like Soylent Green, the final technique is made of people! PEEEEOPLEEEE! If nothing else is around, use people! They're everywhere and easily re-positioned with a little cooperation. Turn your flash sideways and bounce off of nearby people. I recommend to yell out "FIRE IN THE HOLE!" or "CLOSE YOUR EYES!" to the people directly in my speed-lights cone of fire. It might inconvenience some people, but when you must get that shot and have no other choice, use this technique. If you have a willing subject that is aware of your devious tactics, you can position them to get the effect you want. People flesh tones, tend to give a nice warm glow to your subject as well (disclaimer: this varies from skin tone to skin tone), bonus!

This shot was brought to you by using people! I only had one chance to capture the recipients of the bouquet and garter toss together, so I had to take it to the extremes and use people! Sorry for those who were caught in the cross fire, you helped in creating this awesome memory! 

I hope you guys enjoyed this post and learned something useful to use in your future shoots! Keep on plugging!

Working with atrocious lighting conditions - Part I

by Avery Wong

One thing that separates professional photographers from "just some guy with a camera" is working with limited resources and being creative when things seem difficult. Sometimes you just get dealt a bad hand, but that doesn't mean you can't try to bluff your way into a winning situation by using what you have.

Take for example a wedding I documented in Oakland in December. The wedding venue was at the Love Potion Collective workshop, a burning man camp which is known for creative, odd and quirky creations. Primarily a giant 30 ft tall colorful glowing amphora set on the back of a bus. Love Potion Collective is normally filled with tools and since it is located in American Steel Studios it has a very high ceiling, which means no bounce flash above.

To further make my life difficult, the wedding is at night, with no windows AND decorations include black drapes over every wall! Lugging around a soft-box wouldn't be practical due to the journalistic and fast paced nature of the ceremony and reception. I told the bride and groom that I would make it work, I strive in difficult situations, and I did make it work!

I strapped a 50mm f/1.8 on my D800 and threw my SB-900 speedlight on it. As dire as it looked, there were, in fact, a few things that I was able to bounce my speed-light off of! Take a look at the photo below of the venue. I used four things to bounce my flash, see if you can spot them.

Photographer's nightmare neatly packaged in a metal building.

First, the most obvious would be the white table covers, I simply turned my camera to the side and bounced the flash on them. This limited me to taking photos in portrait instead of landscape, luckily for me, I quite enjoy shooting in portrait mode. I made sure to use a nice prime lens to get some sweet sweet bokeh action in the background as well!

Get some nice side bounce off those table cloths!

Second, I use the giant amphora itself! This led to some interesting bounce lighting as the mobile structure was lit using internal LEDs that constantly changed colors and patterns. I would try to time the shutter releases with different designs from the glow to give the photos a very unique look.

This photo turned out so well that you don't even notice the photobomb!

Another technique I did was using the light from the amphora as a fill or rim light to give the photos a little extra kick!

Odd circumstances and environments lead to oddly awesome pictures!

Third...well see if you can guess number three and four on your own, I bet you will never guess number four! I'll let you know the answer in my next post! Until then, stay tuned!