Creating Drama in a Stormy Field

The key to this shot was using lighting that was relatively sympathetic to the ambient light, which was shafts of sunlight piercing through dark clouds over a wheat field.

The ambient light was underexposed by around a stop and a half to make the sky go even darker than it really was, and make the distant wheat a darker tone, too.

The flashes were set up to approximate pools of light from the sun breaking through and illuminating the model. The main light was a flash through a softbox to the right of the camera. It was an Elinchrom Ranger Quadra fired through a small Chimera softbox. (Chimera’s sizes run large—their small softbox is about as big as many manufacturer’s medium or large boxes.) A second bare flash ...

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