It’s been gross and rainy for the past couple of days, which gave me the opportunity to try an experiment I’ve been toying with for a while…
Basically I took a bunch of tin foil and lined my huge honkin umbrella with foil, then I took my Pentax 540 strobe and tied it up into the ribs, pointing up toward the foil lined interior (widest setting).
Vicky and I then headed out downtown, and she stood out in the rain with the strobe-d umbrella while I used the k10d commander flash to trigger it wirelessly.
Max sync speed and small aperture ensured the low-lit background, while the reflected strobe streamed down on her face, as if the sun was shining out from the umbrella in the middle of the rain.
here are some of the results:
First one I really liked. The face is a bit blown out, but I actually feel it adds to the effect, as if her face it turned to direct sunlight: (click the image for larger size on flickr – when you view it large, you can actually see the raindrops streaming off the umbrella!)
Shot 2: the “sun from the umbrella” effect is not quite as strong, but I still like the light and the background, and the balance of sky and strobe:
There are a few more good ones, but they all need a fair amount of post processing (to clone out the light leaks on the umbrella, some dodging/burning etc…