Lauren-Christina in the Chiltern Hills

I photographed the amazing and lovely Lauren-Christina recently out on the windswept and chilly Chiltern Hills.

The shoot started as the sun was setting and finished about half an hour after the sun had set. The wind on the exposed top of the hill meant it was vital to makes sure that Lauren-Christina was not too cold.

In the wind I opted to use a smaller Orbis Ringflash on my Speedlite to light Lauren-Christina, there was much less chance of the Orbis being blown over than a medium soft box.

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Starting with Lauren on the top of the hill, and the remaining few rays of sunset in the sky I put a single Speedlite 600EX-RT to the right of the camera and slightly above Lauren-Christina’s eye-line. I was glad of the radio transmitter for my flash as I used an EF 135mm f/2L USM lens for all these shots. To get my model pictured full-length meant a fair walk backwards.

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For this second shot the now ‘chilled’ model was moved to a position out of the wind, but still near to the top of the hill. The flash was switched to the left of the camera position and we carried on as the sun set. During these few moments both the picture above and the one below were taken.

Finally the sun disappeared, it was really quite dark and almost too dark for the camera to focus. In such instances putting a Speedlite 600EX-RT on the camera as a non-firing master flash adds the option for an AF assist light to the EOS 5D Mark III. Moving to a position under a tree and sat on some logs I took this last frame. I did get a second flash to light the signpost in the back of the picture.

Finally with the light gone for another day we packed the cameras away and headed off to get Lauren-Christina a hot chocolate drink 🙂

If you’d like to work with Lauren-Christina, please contact her via her Lauren-Christina Model Facebook page.

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Technical information

All these pictures were taken on a Canon EOS 5D Mark III, fitted with an EF 135mm f/2L USM lens and the Speedlite Transmitter ST-E3-RT to trigger the Speedlite 600EX-RT that was inside the Orbis Ringflash.

The Orbis does give an amazingly good spread of light that maintains a soft wrapping effect very suited to this kind of picture. Look at the shot to the left, the Orbis is actually turned away from Lauren-Christina, yet still it gives lovely light.

Once we had finished the first shot, we moved out of the wind and Lauren-Christina added a jacket for warmth, but also it helped to change the look of the pictures too. Better to have a more comfortable subject than a frozen one.