The Flash Photography Field Guide

One Location, One Light, Three Photos

Working for magazines often means getting a variety of shots very quickly. If you can do this without changing location or the lighting to too great a degree, so much the better. These three shots all look very different and were all taken within a few minutes using just one light—an Elinchrom Ranger Quadra fired through a gridded beauty dish.

The first shot (right) shows the location well. The model, a boxer, is posed in the doorway of an old barn, rim-lit by the sun coming from behind. The light on his face is from the Quadra, placed to the right of the camera and exactly in line with the sun. This shot is an ideal “scene-setter,” showing a nice amount of the barn and the yard in the background.

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