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!