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36 advanced photographer January 2011
Outdoor Flash Inspiration
outdoor flash
Natural lights all well and good but for pin-sharp images that
roar off the page oozing colour and clarity, you just cant beat a
little bit of flash. The dark art of strobism is more popular than
ever: many are completely hooked on
the hugely addictive approach to lighting. Over the next 12
pages well reveal advanced techniques for improving your
own shots as well as the kit youll need to get started...
In-depth gUIde to...
power up wIth phIl wInterbournes gorgeous portfolIo
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January 2011 advanced photographer 37
Outdoor Flash Inspiration
outdoor flash
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Outdoor Flash Inspiration
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Outdoor Flash Inspiration
42 advanced photographer January 2011
In 2008 the writer Malcolm Gladwell published a book called
Outliers, examining high-fliers and the road to their successes.
Throughout the now critically acclaimed work, Gladwell makes
reference to the well-known Ten-Thousand Hour Rule that practicing
a specific task for around 10,000 hours is the key to excellence.
If this theory is true, keen photographer Phil Winterbourne would
have had to devote every waking moment of his life to discovering
more about off-camera flash, as hes only been taking pictures
properly (as he himself puts it) for just three years. As a full
time IT professional for BT, a keen mountain biker and busy father,
Phil has only been shooting strobist pictures for just over one
thousand days so his photographic journey is quite a short tale.
Though Ive always had cameras. My dad gave me my first one when I
was about nine, and the first SLR I used was his OM1 back in the
seventies, he says. All my pictures were utterly rubbish. Id take a
sh*t holiday picture, develop it, say, God, thats awful and then
not take another for six months. The delay was too long for me to
learn.
It was the advent of digital capture that saw Phil start to
embrace photography. When I got a digital camera I could press the
button, look at the back and say Oh, thats underexposed immediate
feedback. Armed with a compact camera, Phil joined up with a gang
of like-minded BT colleagues, forming an online camera club. Every
month a subject was picked and a panel of judges would critique
submitted pictures. That was what introduced me to photography in
terms of rules. Theyd say, The subjects a bit central stick it on
one of the thirds and Id think Whats thirds then? The continual
feedback turned me from a snapper into a photographer. My
understanding of everything came from that internal BT
competition.
Phil worked away at his hobby until the arrival of the Canon EOS
300D. I felt Id got to the point where I wanted to have more
control and the compact that I had been using was quite limited. I
became a proud Canon owner and have been ever since.
People personPhil quickly found his niche in portraits, one of
the areas stereotypically avoided by amateur photographers who
favour trains or landscapes its cos they dont answer back. the
photographer laughs. Im very much a people person. Im always asked
How do you take such good portraits? and its because I can talk to
people.
Although Phil had always taken pictures of his children, their
limited attention span soon frustrated the photographer. A contact
of his mentioned the popular social networking website Model Mayhem
and advised Phil to try working with a professional. I spent about
a year being too scared to try and organise a shoot with anyone, he
says, but the first time I actually went out to do a shoot with a
model was September of 2007. I had an on-camera flash, which I was
using for fill more than anything else, and Id never heard of
off-camera flash at this stage. I did have a reflector so I was
trying to be really clever and angle my camera flash towards the
reflector in my left hand to bounce light in.
This marked the start of Phil trying to control light in his
pictures and again, it turned out to be the Model Mayhem site that
pushed him on to the next level.
Another photographer started up in the area at the same time as
me, and we were
shooting the same models from the site the ones with no
experience. He sent me a message saying Im not stalking you, were
just using the same model. We got talking, and he sent me a link to
the Strobist blog.
Strobist.blogspot.com is written by the American photographer
David Hobby and is the first stop for all things strobist. Needless
to say, Phil was immediately hooked on this vibrant form of
photography.
Its the power of the pictures that I like, he says. With
photography, I sort of paint in oils. Some people paint in
watercolours, which are subtle and soft and tonal whereas that bold
oil look you can only get if youre taking control of the lighting
and putting loads of contrast in, tweaking the shadows and
highlights.
Phil learned his craft by trial and error. Early on it was
complete experimentation. That blue shot in the underpass was taken
in April 2008, and that was one of the first times that I went out
and tried to do any strobism. Id read all about coloured gel
strobism but the kits were expensive, so I went out and bought a
box of Quality Street, picked out all the blue wrappers and used
those to gel the flashes.
His home-made kit is echoed by his atypical approach to
strobism. Im a bit of a cheat, he admits. Strobism to many
photographers is all about using cheap flashes and manual wireless
triggers , but I dont. I use the Canon IR trigger ST-E2 because
that gives me ETTL metering and despite all the arguments to the
contrary I think thats better.
Said arguments against this method are along the lines of TTL
systems dont always make your photos look the way you want, and
infrared systems need close quarters, line-of-sight and specific
angles to work but people-person Phil counters by saying that
theres nothing more annoying than when youre working with a model
and you have to stop the flow to fiddle with your camera. The art
of strobism is all about balancing your flashes with the ambient
light, and if youre outdoors with a model youve got to keep that
dialogue going all the time. You cant be stopping, saying Ooh, the
suns out, hang on a bit and adjusting.
Phil winterbourne
Its the power of the pictures that I like.
With photography, I sort of paint in oils.
Some people paint in watercolours, which
are subtle and soft and tonal whereas that bold oil look you
can
only get if youre taking control of the light
Words Charlotte Griffiths pIctUres Phil winterbourne
With only three years of true photography under his belt, Phil
Winterbournes portfolio of off-camera flash work is startlingly
accomplished for a newcomer
BIography Location leeds shoots with Canon eos 5D, Canon
70-200mm f/2.8 l is, Canon ef 17-40mm f/4 l, Canon speedlites 580,
430, st-e2 trigger
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Outdoor Flash Inspiration
January 2011 advanced photographer 43
So how does the photographer set up his system to shoot? In my
head Im thinking in plus or minus stops, which works really well
with the flash exposure compensation, he explains. I almost always
shoot in aperture-priority AE mode because I work out what
depth-of-field I want, set an appropriate aperture, then the
shutter speed can look after itself. Ill chimp the first exposure,
think right, I need to dial this down two-thirds of a stop for the
ambient, and then Ill start layering in the flashes, dialling in
some flash exposure compensation. Then Im off. I clamber all over
the place, point the camera up or down, the sun can come out it is
a bit of a bugger in strong sunlight but otherwise, its sorted.
Once the photos are done, then comes the editing: like most
photographers Phil spends a great deal of his time in front of the
computer but unlike most photographers, he doesnt complain. I love
it. When I get up in the morning, I turn the computer on when I go
to bed, I turn the computer off, he says. I think it was
post-processing that really helped me get into photography. Not in
the case of rescuing bad shots, but more that when Im shooting an
image Im already thinking about how Im going to edit it. I really
enjoy the editing. I know loads and loads of photographers that
resent every second they spend in front of the computer. Im a bit
like a cook. When youre out shooting, thats like stirring the
mixture the bit on the computer is where you take the cake out of
the oven and eat it.
Phil will rarely spend more than about ten minutes working on an
individual image in Photoshop. If its ten minutes, thats a long
time for me, he says. But Ive been doing this for a while, so Ive
worked out what I need to do to get my look to pictures and its
roughly the same, so its a much quicker process.
With this laudable level of dedication to learning, you have to
wonder what level Phil will have reached in another three years.
Bookmark his site: one not to be missed.
the storIes behInd the pIctures
Dr whoThis was taken in the same underpass as the green image.
One flash was behind the model, facing forwards on 24mm, gelled
with a blue Quality Street wrapper the key light was camera right
at eye-level. The zoom head was set on 24mm.
Canon EOS 5D, EF17-40mm f/4 L, 1/13sec, f/4, ISO 400
MYSPACeThe aim of this was to try and create a good photo in the
style of the typical MySpace ams-length shot. I had to clamber up
on a fence to get the angle and balance while also trying to direct
and shoot.
Canon EOS 5D, EF 17-40mm f/4 L, 1/80sec, f/4, ISO 50
hAir SwirlSShot in a local park, this was a shoot for the models
portfolio. I was particularly drawn to the different colours in her
hair, and how they complemented the autumnal leaves. To bring that
out I shot this with quite a wide lens, but zoomed my on-camera
flash in quite tight to give a natural vignette.Canon EOS 5D,
EF17-40mm f/4 L, 1/125sec, f/4, ISO 50
ContaCt:www.philwinterbourne.co.ukwww.flickr.com/philwinterbourne
Green SCreAMI was being experimental with my new flash gels. It
was shot in my favourite underpass and I wanted a really green
background. But just gelling the backlights wasnt working, so I
gelled the key light purple, betting that when I corrected the
white-balance, the green would go very green.
Canon EOS 5D, EF17-40mm f/4 L, 1/20sec, f/4, ISO 200
PurPle PAtChTaken behind the Royal Armoires museum in Leeds city
centre on a training course I was holding. I saw this tatty door
and loved the contrast of it and the model. I got one of my
students to hold the flash off to the right-side.Canon EOS 5D,
EF70-200mm f/2.8 L IS, 1/80sec, f/4, ISO 100
hooDieA gritty urban/fashion shot. To keep the moody high
contrast look I wanted I underexposed the ambient by about a stop
and fired a flash from about 45 degrees from camera right. Looking
back now I wish Id placed the flash higher to improve the look of
the nose shadow.
Canon EOS 5D, EF70-200mm f/2.8 L IS, 1/200sec, f/4, ISO 100
FAb FlAreOne of the great things about shooting outside with
flash is that you usually have an extra light along from the sun.
Here the backlight is coming from the sun with a bare flash doing
the work up front.
Canon EOS 5D , EF70-200mm f/2.8 L IS set to 145mm, 1/800sec,
f/2.8, ISO 100
leAVeSAnother very early shoot where we were shooting for both
our portfolios. I was looking fo a bit of a sixties vibe, hence the
black & white look. And I used the same trick with the very
wide lens and zoomed in flash to highlight the centre. I like the
way the distortion from the wide-angle has affected the leaves.
Canon EOS 5D, EF17-40mm f/4 L, 1/25sec, f/8, ISO 100
SeXY oilSThis is one of my favourite outdoor shots. The stone
work made me think of old oil paintings, so I decided to make the
image look as oil-like as I could. I used very contrasty lighting
on the model and underexposed the background.
Canon EOS 5D, EF17-40mm f/4 L, 1/1600sec, f/4, ISO 100