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Every once in a (great) while we get to take some time to do a conceptual shoot just for the heck of it. This one is from a little while back but hasn’t made it on the blog yet. Rachel was kind enough to hang out with me one cold night in a big empty field. I brought a bag of smoke bombs, five speedlights, my camera, and a lighter. My vision for the shoot was to have everything dark except the lights, smoke, and Rachel.
After setting everything up we decided to do some photos sans smoke bombs. I figured we might as well, plus it let me get calibrated with settings and framing. I had to shine a flash light on Rachel while I locked in focus, then turn the flash light off (at which point it became pitch black and I couldn’t even see her) and then shoot the photo. The strobes were blinding when contrasted against the inky dark surround. They were, after all, pointing directly back at me.
Bring On the Smoke bombs
I was liking the look of the photos. It was time to add in the smoke bombs. I think everything gets better with smoke bombs so I figured this was a slam dunk. What I hadn’t anticipated was how difficult it would be for me to light all of them, run back to where I needed to stand for the shot, shine the flash light on Rachel, lock focus, and actually shoot the photo before the smoke was done billowing out.
You only get about 10 seconds of smoke from your typical smoke bomb. That didn’t leave a lot of time for me. I sprinted back (way back when you’re shooting at 200mm) to grab the camera and make it happen. After burning my fingers while rushing to light all the smoke bombs I started seeing some things I liked on the back of the camera.
Check out some photos from our conceptual shoot and see what you think. I’d love to get out there and do some more stuff along these lines. It’s always a matter of finding the time, right? Do you have any cool ideas you’d like to see in a photograph? Shoot us a message @blueflashphoto on Instagram or leave one on our Facebook page.
