RF Cookbook — Alfred Gordon: Colored Skies

I recently had the opportunity to teach a group of wonderful students a week-long program on wedding photography at the Triangle Institute of Photography in Pittsburgh, PA. Being from Florida, I was prepared to teach how to handle lighting on a harsh sunny day, like we usually are faced with for weddings in my area. But, I quickly found out that the weather in their area is more often heavy cloud cover. My students wanted to know how to make the clouds look more interesting, with good lighting on the subjects. That particular day was no exception, except there was a strong wind as well. As I walked back into the classroom, I spied a bag of colored gels on the table, and also 30 feet of white fabric. I grabbed my Fuji S5, asked Stephanie, one of the students in the class, if she would toss on the wedding dress we had, and said, “Let’s go outside and have some fun!”

When we all shot film, we had to match the film type (daylight or tungsten) to the light source we were using to light the subject. So, if we used a tungsten film outdoors, the image would be a blue-cyan color. I rummaged through my bag of gels and found an orange color conversion gel, usually used to make a daylight source become a tungsten source. We taped the gel over a Quantum Q-flash, which we fired off-camera with a PocketWizard radio slave. We first metered our Q-flash, at full power with the orange gel, from the subject position. At about 10 feet away, we got an f/11 reading at ISO 100. Remember to set the flash meter to 1/250 second to read the flash only, not the ambient. The ambient light metered at 1/60 at f/11 for a proper exposure. I knew I wanted to make the Q-flash my main light, so I underexposed the ambient light by two stops. The only way to change the ambient light without affecting my flash exposure was by increasing my shutter speed, not changing the aperture. I set my camera to 1/250 at f/11.

Here is the fun part. We did a custom white balance off a gray color target by firing the gelled strobe off of it. This, in effect, told the camera that the orange flash was the true color. When the image was taken, her face and upper dress were now the correct color, and the lower dress and sky became a cool cyan-blue. The combination of underexposure and the color balance made the sky much more dramatic.

I then grabbed my 10–20mm Sigma lens and got under the “veil.” The off-camera flash was positioned by another student to light the face properly. I let the strong wind blow the veil right over the camera. I had our bride lean toward me to counteract the upward tilt of my camera. I tilted the camera sideways to add more of a dynamic flow to the image. Stephanie was a trooper to even hold on to our fabric in the howling wind!

I’m sure this effect could have been created in Photoshop, but I feel it is important to get it right in the camera, and spend as little time in front of the computer as possible. Imagine the possibilities with other subjects, like high school seniors! A green gel on the flash and correct white balance would turn the sky or background magenta. Or, a blue gel on the flash could add yellow to a sunset. These are effects that could have never been done with film. I now carry a few gels with me on my weddings and other shoots, hoping for a cloudy day!