After finishing with the candle images, Kylie and I shifted to a totally different approach, working with a studio flash. In Halifax, I have access to a fully equipped studio (through a very kind professional photographer, who has helped me in a wide variety of ways over the years) but with my move to Moncton, New Brunswick, I have had to come up with alternatives. The perfect solution would be to purchase a full set of studio lights but this is both financially impossible and physically impractical - there is no way I could afford such an investment and I currently have no space to use that much equipment in Moncton.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaRQCnfG2RmEbafwY9JOdODkcUQmZNJg4lMb_HdRCMb4LRp-6ZpZxppIlJrPShFfBU8dH5-NEwxiCTP-SpGCUVUjYL7rVu0xsvMYMZOds0BNxtom7fwy2OPI-khShfVIyHs3xFo3CU6gs/s1600/810-04-011.jpg) |
8"x10" film |
All that being said, it isn't practical to expect to never need to work
indoors at night, so as a compromise, early in 2004, I purchased a
single used studio flash - a light that happened (by fortuitous
happenstance) to come complete with a small 24" square soft box (I use
soft boxes in the studio to soften the artificial light and give it a
more pleasant quality that is closer to natural window light). This
set-up cost well under half the cost of a single new studio light and at
a minimum will permit me to work indoors at night, without always
having to resort to working with candles.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Ej4Q47qNnW2oJ6arAnQ6IT3hmbBPj9_3hFngFJXK3O5f3jxeYPxS78HiB186ApCcvdY77iiBindPCXmPikvpD7u7q6t0_GrXHbCF0UEtbU1VWbiJE_QooF_UsKJRWZR6M6jThjqOZBo/s1600/810-04-013.jpg) |
8"x10" film |
As it was my first
time working with the new light, it was also a session full of
experimentation - the first lesson was that I couldn't synchronize the
EOS 10D camera with the flash - it just wouldn't trigger the flash. The
8"x10" lenses worked fine, however, so I just set aside the digital
camera and worked with film.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT9qFLC7ysjTRWyaeksSvA-D3uaUfakXRs90sPRxmh9VuSuWbMNsA-kK95ZDoif4uLXB_qWY2U0a2x1BUaFqyoAYKIw4lvIxjxjQ9d0dgfT3s_LSqQE6p1HpdGv-UTtvIO7PDhvlDJmD4/s1600/810-04-015.jpg) |
8"x10" film |
I was a little concerned that the single flash wouldn't have enough light for working with the large format camera but my fears were unfounded. For torso and body-pose images, I was able to get enough light to ensure sharp focus and while there wasn't enough light to work closer with everything in focus, I simply changed to working with a narrow depth of field for my close-up images and produced a number of quite successful compositions. In the end, the majority of the problems I cam up against were surmountable and the biggest issue was not having enough light but rather having enough space - my living room worked well enough, but I kept having to shove furniture out of the way to get the right camera position!
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