Five - Tennis Ace

After Hannah and I had hit some tennis balls one day this spring, I talked her in to posing for some shots for me. This was basically just a chance for me to play around with some lighting that I had never tried before. I wasn't trying to make pretty light with softboxes, I wanted dramatic light with bare flashes, one to each side of Hannah. I only had two flashes at the time, and they were being triggered remotely from the on-camera flash. I would have liked a little fill straight in front of her (also known as on-axis fill) to lighten the shadows just a bit on her face. That is something I can do now since I sold my low-power SB-600 flash and purchased two SB-700 flashes to replace it and team with my SB-800.

The reason this made my favorites list though is the reaction I got from Hannah when she saw it. "It looks like I've got muscles!" This is exactly what harsh cross lighting accomplishes. It wasn't a perfect setup, but for the first time really trying it, I accomplished what I wanted. I got a couple cool photos of Hannah while learning and getting some experience for future projects. Hint - you'll see some of those in a couple days.