Photographing in a Alley

When I am photographing a portrait, I often find the background I want to use, but the lighting on the subject just isn't there. In situations like these, the flashes need to come out.

The photograph attached to this post was taken in a very narrow lane in downtown Vancouver. Sometimes, if you work near the end of the lane, you can get directional lighting, however, this stretch of wall was in the middle of the lane, giving only top down lighting t work with. The existing lighting would have created very dark shadows under the eyes resulting in a generally unpleasing image. A quick solution would have been to pull out a reflector and shine some light back into the shadowed areas, however, this would have also light up under the nose and chin, a look that I am not particularly fond of. I felt that a better solution was to pull out the flashes.

My primary light source was 2-580EX2 flashes placed inside of a 2x2 Apollo soft box. The light source was placed to camera left. The exposure was set to balance the ambient light. Balancing the flash with the ambient minimized shadows on the wall and careful placement of the light and subject all but eliminated them. The net result was a portrait that looked natural yet still light the mask of the face.

This image was taken with a Canon D6, 70-200 IS f2.8 lens at 200mm, f 5, ISO 800, shutter speed 1/60. The image was finished in Lightroom with a vignette.