Off-camera flash and using reflectors has been just such a topic. For many of you,  your eyebrows will now be twitching in surprise! “But they’re easy”, I hear you saying! But for many of us – and by “us” I mean the keen hobbyist with aspirations but also self-recognition that they are at the beginning of their photographic journey – some of these topics seem more complex or tricky. I had convinced myself that off- camera flash required expensive triggers, probably a couple of other photographers and that this was an area of photography better tackled by full time photographers. I have always liked the purity of natural light and the freedom it gives me to just have my camera, a couple of spare batteries or CF cards and go wandering off down any alley that took my fancy to explore what was there.

Well I finally confronted this ridiculous state of affairs yesterday. A friend of ours, the beautiful Maha Youssef wanted some pictures for her new business as a professional make-up artist and also a couple of portraits of herself. I decided that this would be the right time to try and experiment with off-camera flash and the use of reflectors. I found an old merchants palace in the heart of old Islamic Cairo, and together with Karim Soliman and Mohammed AbdelWaheb – two wonderful friends and very talented Cairo based photographers – we went and did a mini-workshop.

I was right about one thing – we did need another pair of hands, reflectors and some radio triggers, but Karim and Mohammed kindly donated these for the day. In fact I discovered that not being able to afford pocket wizards was ot a barrier to this whole approach. They had a great set of Chinese made radio triggers that worked brilliantly and were as cheap as chips and of course, relfectors are not expensive or can even be home-made! I had made sure that I had already previously visited the location at the same time of day to see what the sun would be doing, what internal light would be available and what the best external locations might be for some natural light portraits too. So now there was no excuse but to dive in and experiment.

We started with the outside shots, partly to get Maha relaxed in front of the camera and partly because I knew I could do these type of portraits without any real assistance. In the first two images included here, I just used an on-camera flash for a little bit of fill to create a slightly enhanced catch-light. Maha was incredibly patient, and as the first part of the day progressed she became more relaxed and used to being in-front of the lens, rather than just doing the make-up for models, or brides who would be the ones having their photograph taken. I also took a couple of fun shots from across the other side of the building of Maha peeking out of one of the small ornate windows too (see the third image below)!

After an hour or so we moved inside, and started to use the radio triggers and the second speedlight. We kept it very simple. A key light and a fill light each at about 45 degrees to Maha. Karim showed me how to set up the key light and a fill-light/back-light. We were shooting with the strong midday sun streaming in through the ornate fret-work of the old palace windows,  but after a couple of test shots we found the right settings, and then I was left to my own devices to direct Maha and to make the composition as I saw fit.

The final part of the morning, we moved to a wonderful window seat, where Maha could look down on the closed courtyard below. The ligth reflecting off the walls was sufficient that we did not need flash, but as the perfect excuse to use a reflector to help balance the light. It was fun to play with the gold, silver and white sides of the reflector and to understand the difference it made in tonal quality, the strength of the light and the subsequent exposure values. You can see some of the images from the indoor seesion at the bottom of the post.

All in all a fun day – I learnt that actually the use of off-camera flash and reflectors, really could not be easier. Why was I getting so worried in the first place? Sure you need to understand the setting of your Speedlight, and to experiment a little with the manual settings and TTL settings, but I am kicking myself now for waiting so long. It has incouraged me to experiment more and to think about using off-camera flash with gels to complement the main key light, especially in some of the samll rural workshops that I love to shoot, where the lighting variances can be so tricky.

My thanks to Maha Youssef for her patience and for letting us turn what she thought would be a couple of quick portraits into a mini-workshop and photo-shoot. If you are in Egypt and need a make-up artist then you can contact her through her Facebook group, Glamour Eyes. My thank also to Karim Soliman and Mohammed AbdelWahab – two wonderful young professional talents whose new company, the Photographer Agency, is already making companies in Cairo beat a path to their door. You can find out more on their facebook group Photographer Agency or their website, www.ph-agency.com

You can see the rest of the images from the shoot in the gallery, by clicking on this link, here