Behind the Lens

This image is the first of a series that we plan to do in order to give our clients a better idea of what goes into creating some of our images.

The location for this image, Rydal Cave in the Lake District, is one that we have visited several times in the past, and we were able to approach creating this image with a clear idea of exactly what we wanted to achieve. As with many of our images, this was taken at night. The advantage shooting at night gives us is that we have total control over the lighting, however this does mean that we had to find ways to work around the need for a long exposure time in order to avoid motion blur. As a result, we used speed lite flashguns in order to backlight our subject, these provide a very bright flash of light which, instead of a continuous light such as a torch. In addition to the white flash light, we opted to use an RBG light bar on a low brightness setting in order to provide a blue ambient light (see the image right), positioned just off frame to the left facing directly upwards into the roof. Once we finally perfected the lighting, the final to do thing before taking the shot was to light a (non toxic) smoke pellet in to catch the light and give the whole image an ethereal glow. Very few adjustments were made in post production other than to crop and apply a vignette.

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV / EF 11-24mm Lens

ISO 200; 11mm; f/4.0; 4 sec.