The magic of wedding photography doesn’t always happen just on the day. When it comes to getting the perfect shots, practice sessions are an important part of Rangefinder’s 30 Rising Star of 2024 Echo Kowalski’s strategy to try out new gear and techniques before she brings them to real weddings. The images she shares with Rangefinder this week are from a shoot she organized in Milan, Italy, to try out a new transmitter while practicing her off-camera flash skills with a speedlight.  

An Urban Heart for Love Photography 

Echo Kowalski is a Hong Kong native who relocated to Germany in her 30s after falling in love with and marrying a German man. Photography became her avenue for integrating with a new cultural climate. While she loves her new home, she’ll always be a Hong Kong girl with an urban heart. That means her style has a distinct low-key cosmopolitan vibe, which shines through in all her work.  

For this test shoot experimenting with off-camera flash, Kowalski wanted to achieve a dynamic, urban feeling, so she planned an experience that would be on the move. Her instructions for her models gave them a role to play – that of “a celebrity couple after a party.” Her plan for the evening gave her many challenges to take into consideration, including changing backgrounds and lighting, which she says “are sometimes not desirable, such as distracting window displays and different lighting color temperatures.”  

To overcome these obstacles, Kowalski scouted and pre-selected locations the night before her photoshoot. This gave her up-to-date information about what the area would look like during the shoot. It also enabled her to choose the best backgrounds and save time by understanding what the ambient light would be like, so she could really make her subjects stand out in her photos.  

The Inverse Square Law 

Kowalski says that one of the most important things for photographers to have in their off-camera flash tool kit if they wish to achieve great results for a shoot like this is an understanding of the inverse square law. With this understanding, one can, “hide a distractive background by letting it fall dark and [know] how to incorporate the background well into the scene by placing the subject and speedlight with the right distance.” 

In short, the inverse square law says that when you half the distance between the speedlight and the subject, the light will be four times brighter. The opposite, of course, is also true. When you move the speedlight away, the light spreads more and becomes less bright. 

Kowalski says, “By changing the distances between the light, subject, and background, you get different results. In this shoot, I kept my camera settings the same (ISO 1000, F2.8, 1/250 sec) and adjusted the speedlight power based on the environmental lighting and the result I wanted: 

• For a bright subject and dark background, put the light close to the subject and far from the background. (Image 2) 
• For both the subject and background well lit in a close-up, put the light close to both the subject and background. (Image 3) 
• For both the subject and background well lit in a wide angle, put the light far from both the subject and background. (Image 4) 

The Heart – and Love – Never Sleeps 

Hong Kong is the never-sleeping city, and reflecting this spirit is at the heart of what Echo Kowalski shares in her wedding photography. This shoot, which was a test shoot for perfecting her familiarization with a new piece of gear for her off-camera flash system, epitomized that feeling. With its representation of a cosmopolitan couple exploring the Milan nightlife together, it is full of passion, love, and excitement. Kowalski brings these authentic emotions to all her work, and her clients seek her out to amplify these feelings they themselves experience in their love. 

Follow Echo Kowalski on Instagram and Facebook. View the full 30 Rising Stars Winners Gallery for 2024 here. 

Credits

• Photo: @kajade_photography
• Dress: @micheleweiten
• Jewelry: @atelierdorothee
• Models: @cliziasomma @loredouze

[Read: The Three FLASH Commandments by Derrel Ho-Shing]

As a thank you to our readers, we’re pleased to offer you a Rangefinder exclusive discount code to get 25% off The Portrait Masters course below. Use the code RF25 at checkout to redeem. This code cannot be used in combination with other sales.