Shooting in extremely bright midday sunlight is always a challenge, harsh shadows & ever-changing lighting doesn’t help the situation. It’s even more ambitious when you want to balance/fight the sun by adding a flash or three. I wanted to get a super bright, almost dreamy, backdrop so I wanted to shoot from a shaded area with a few trees for framing & then use strobes to even that out with the rest of the scene.

Once we found a spot that worked I got my 580ex set up in a reflective umbrella on full power. Two or three test shots later it became clear that a single flash wasn’t going to cut it, I used a gorilla pod to add a 430ex into the same umbrella at full power — much better! I finished it off with another 430ex on 1/4 power through a grid with a 1/4 color temperature orange gel to add some warmth, a little pop to the hair & get that nice wraparound light on the arm.

There is also a behind the scenes shot for this on my Instagram if you like that sort of thing.