Creating a glowing window light

As part of my shoot with Chai earlier this year, we decided to try and make use of the interesting glass blocks at the top of the stairs at Shutterworks studio.

The weather outside was pretty gloomy and there wasn’t much light coming through the window. A few attempts using window light only didn’t yield any satisfactory images. We were also trying to get a decent shoot angle and pose in the relatively tight space. They needed some extra oompffh….

An off-camera flash provided this, firing it through a window positioned around the corner of the building aiming it towards the glass blocks.

Prior to this set up we were in the main studio experimenting with some colour gels. With this in mind I cellotaped a red gel on the front of the flash head, which was zoomed to 105mm to help direct and maximise the light reaching the glass blocks.

The warm radiant light in the image is the a result of the red gel. Hazzah! There it was, the light we were after!

Given the diffusion of light across the window pane and the thick glass blocks, and with Chai positioned with her back towards the light, I had to crank up my ISO and aperture settings until enough light registered to give a good exposure. I ended up with 1/100, f/4, ISO 1600.

All that was left to do was for Chai to balance with poise on the ledge! Not easy at all…

I was very happy with the result. A mixture of quick thinking and some tenacity to make a great shot from all involved.

Link to Scotts Blog: http://lymathimages.com/2015/03/21/creating-a-glowing-window-light-off-camera-flash/