Our flight came in on a Sunday night from an amazing four days in Dallas where I was able to use some off camera lighting techniques. We shot Stephen and Erica Hayes wedding in Carrollton, TX and the next day turned around and did a photography workshop. Sunday morning we went to Pastor Mike and Kathy Hayes church to hear a sermon that felt like it had been inspired by my recent journaling! What a gift their family is to us, especially their daughter Amie (my kindred spirit)! Brian and I were even invited to document their orphanage in Nicaragua, we can hardly wait. (we also got the okay for Pascaline to join us! can you imagine an experience like that at 6 1/2 years old!)

But on to “Off Camera Lighting Techniques Demystified!” 🙂

SO, I’ve been intimidated most my photography life by off camera lighting. Why? I think some guy told me once that’s it REALLY complicated, and I just believed him. But that excuse doesn’t work any more as of this year! Every year I pick one thing to really fine tune. Last year it was color. I had a blast trying new things and getting out of my comfort zone. This year I decided on off camera lighting–the whole strobe, transmitting signals to fire flashes elsewhere thingy.

I started with the getting ready photos. To Brian’s surprise, I grabbed the light stand, opened the umbrella, pointed my flash right into it, and then hid the umbrella and flash behind Erica’s dresses. Check out the results!! I’m so excited!

You wouldn’t even guess that it was the middle of the day, and the room was fully lit. But since I fired the flash from behind her dress it illuminated all of them. In post process, I up’d the contrast to make it a bit more dramatic.

When we shoot destination weddings, we often have extra time b/c we figure that even though their package said we’d shoot for nine hours, why not stay for fourteen and get some fun shots. 🙂 Let’s just say, I went crazy with lighting. Here’s her shoe shot!

I hope it’s okay to share how I did this and that by sharing the secret I’m not ruining the image for you. But I just think you’d have such fun playing with your flashes too if you felt encouraged.

For the shoe image, I gathered all her tulling and set her shoes on top. I had Brian hold the flash underneath her tulling so when it fired her tulling lit up like a high key lighting studio shot. So fun!

But here’s my favorite! 🙂

I’m going crazy over this image!!! We set up a light stand, pointed the umbrella at the back of the singer’s head, fired two flashes into the umbrella and VOILA!! How fun is that!

Are you intimidated by flashes or off camera lighting techniques? If so, you can totally do this! Grab your flash, set your camera up so it fires a signal (Pocket Wizards are the BEST for this!) to your flash, and then put your flash somewhere, anywhere, and just try it out. The only way to learn is by trying and making a lot of mistakes along the way. But before you know it, you’ll start getting a better understanding of light and the direction of light, and you’ll blow yourself away!

If you have any other questions about the above shots or off camera lighting techniques, feel free to post them on my Facebook page!