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DPChallenge Forums >> Photography Discussion >> Losing the Light...
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 05/03/2009 10:37:41 PM · #1
Most people share stories and photos of when they found the perfect light to get that great shot. Well today was pretty awkward...I had the perfect light from the first photo..AND LOST IT! I can't believe I lost the light. So there were about 30 models and 3 photographers for this shoot. All photographers were shooting the same scene just in order. We were using a couple of strobes and a hair light, plus on camera flashes. One photog at the strobes synced with his camera..I had it where when my flash went off, the strobes went off...we obviously had to go in order to keep from messing up each others lighting.

Everything was going smoothly until about half way though the shoot. I stepped back up into a window to get a shot of the whole procession from behind (photographers shooting the models)...Perfect shot. I stepped back close to the scene and POOF i lost the light! The windows were about 15 feet back from where I was positioned before. The curtains were open but it was a rainy day and they had been open the whole time during the shoot before. I had my flash bouncing off the ceiling in the same spot with the same settings I had before..and no such luck. I know the other photographer had been adjusting the strobes, but he said he hadn't adjusted it much. I really do not know what happened and I couldn't get it back....So after several tries...changing the batteries in my flash thinking they must have been low, switching the batteries back...adjusting the on camera settings, adjusting where I bounced the flash from, and adjusting shooting location...I found that I had to up the flash by 3 stops and adjust camera settings to get the light back.....and you know what..after about 50 shots..I LOST IT AGAIN!!!!!! WTF! It just disappeared betweeen shots! Who loses the light twice in one shoot.

So needless to say as a confident photographer who knew I just grabbed hundreds of great shots in the beginning, my confidence waned pretty badly...and I could almost see it in my composition because I was searching hard for the light and not focusing on the models. This did not help with models swtiching in and out of the scene....I left the shoot not very confident with what i grabbed at all...except for the first 150 or so shots. Good thing I only took 255 shots. THere are probably some good or salvageable ones where i upped the flash exposure but this is going to be an interesting edit.

Has anything similar like this happened to anyone else? Do people lose the light that quickly often? Could a window 15 ft back have an effect (if it brightens up outside)? I should have closed the curtains...Now I have to edite the hell out of these photos to redeem myself.....Oh and on top of that, I had a CD of photos (from a different shoot) to give to the person coordinating this (the customer) and I gave him the wrong CD. Can we say this was a bad day? And it's all because I moved last night (good thing) couldn't find anything today (bad thing) and rushed to try and shoot.

Now watch next week I'll be happy for the shoot..as in I smell a free Study that may score a 6.

Thanks for letting me vent....feel free to answer the question or just share the experiences.
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