Oh Say Can You Sing

So here's a shot that goes against the post I wrote just before this. I confess, I used more than one light for this photo. But hear me out...

One light is 45º to the left of her, the other is 45º to the right - the shadows give it away. Both flashes are gelled to CTO (Color Temperature Orange). Camera is in Manual, 1/80 or 1/100 sec (I don't remember), f/5.6, 20mm - I think that's the recipe. It's the recipe for a single lit subject against a controllable background. By that I mean that I could easily dial down to 1/250 sec to make it darker, or dial up to around 1/40 sec to make it lighter - either one wouldn't impact my subject.

So does it really go against my last post - not really. You could have done something similar with one light, but because I couldn't diffuse the light (this was a public event, not a private shoot), I would have been casting very harsh shadows on the opposite side of the face.

Lastly - this stuff isn't complicated. Setting the lights up is simple, and fiddling with your settings isn't either - as long as you know what you're changing and how it impacts the image.

Update: A friend just asked me if I did anything to this photo in post. Yes - a small levels adjustment to increase contrast - but besides that - no. I didn't change the exposure of the foreground or the background, I didn't change the saturation or the color of the clouds in the sky or the turf, I didn't add any fill light, I didn't add brightness on the subject with the adjustment brush, I didn't crop or straighten it, heck, I didn't even add sharpening (which I should have, since it was shot in RAW). It's not that I'm gung-ho about being loyal to the almighty original image, it's just that I liked what I shot and went with it. OK, I'll say it - I'm lazy.