Sketching Light: An Illustrated Tour of the Possibilities of Flash

The Studio

I tried two things—one simple, and one with a touch of complexity. In the feathery fashion shot, I put three SB-910s on a TriFlash and pumped them collectively into one of the new Lastolite 8-in-1 umbrellas, which has a Velcro port in the middle of the opaque backing. This creates something like a 2×2′ softbox, basically. It’s a strong, directional shoot-through light, but it’s also contained by the substantial swatch of material around the edges of the 40″ brolly. It collects the light in a concentrated but lustrous way right where you want it.

In this case, it was a good solution because I wanted the light to stay around her head and plumed shoulders, and not spread overmuch to the background. I let the camera ride on auto white ...