Columbia River Gorge Portrait

1/28/10 – Rebecca Getsfrid – Commercial and Fashion Portrait Photographer in Vancouver, WA and Portland, OR

I woke up at 9 this morning with the intent of driving 3 hours down to Antelope, OR to do some fashion-y portrait stuff in the deserts of Oregon. Bad advice from google maps and a check engine light that I couldn’t figure out the reason for ended the trip early, but all was not lost.

We stopped at an overlook on 30 West overlooking the Columbia River Gorge, and worked it awesomely. The instant I saw it I knew what I wanted to do. I had to give a bit of leeway as the sun was a bit more south than I would have liked, but within about 10 minutes of shooting, we had the shots I wanted.

Both of these are lit simply with one light. The first is an Alien Bees B800 at 1/2 power with no modifiers save the stock 7″ reflector. Subject distance is around 3 feet from the light. Second shot’s the same, but the Bee is pushed to full power to combat the brighter sky closer to the sun. f/11 for the first one, f/16 on the second, both at max sync speed 1/180th.

The AB800 is, relatively, not that big of a light. 320 Watt/seconds is a good two stops less than you’re going to get with an Elinchrom Ranger or Profoto 7b. Even less if you’re rocking multiple packs or a bi-tube head. But even with that 320 Watt/seconds, you can shoot right into the sun and still tell the sky what to do. The sun, in both cases, provides a great backlight, turning your one-light setup into a 2-light crosslighting deal.

The one thing I wish I had done differently after seeing the images somewhere other than the camera LCD in bright daylight is tossed a second light in the mix pointing at her shoes, half a stop to a stop lower than the main.

This is my first time using the 16-50/2.8 outdoors with flash, and again, I’m absolutely stunned by what the lens puts out. Both of those shots are pretty much straight from camera. All I did was apply a color profile from my x-rite colorchecker passport, and eyedropper a square for white balance. No sharpening, no contrast, no saturation. Just a good, honest image.

My one concern with the 16-50, that I’m going to have to be careful about and actually slow myself down for, is that when it’s out of focus, it is out of focus. When it’s in focus, it’s absolutely stunning, but if you’re even a couple millimeters off, it’s going to show. Either way, the lens is a keeper, and I’ll definitely be shooting more in the gorge again. Beautiful place.