Gamla Stan is the old town in Stockholm. It is generally a lovely and photogenic place but also very often full of tourists. To avoid the crowds I made a date with a good friend JAKB there to shoot some early morning pictures and this is the result of this excursion.
The light at this time of day is quite fantastic, especially from a cloud-less sky in the summer time as this day was. Even if it was a little chilly the light was quite fantastic and walking through old town at this hour with hardly anyone else about is a very nice feeling.
Lighting info: One SB-600 into 109cm silver umbrella camera right. Natural light through window to camera left.
I shot this recently using SB-600 and silver umbrella on stand to the right of Jeanette. The main light is therefore the flash and the fill is natural light coming from the window she is looking out. It was a great test of my umbrella and the shot turned out very much like I wanted it to on the first try.
It is easy to start wanting more gadgets but in reality you do not need so many different things in order to get going with proper lighting. And the key is to keep experimenting because that is how you learn what happens and how you can go at it.
I was surprised how well the texture and bit of shadow came out of the white walls that is the background for this shot.
I want to redo this again but this time use the flash as a fill rather than the main light, getting the main light from the window, perhaps in the evening when the light temperature is a little lower and the light is more redshifted than in the broad daylight.
The background here is just the white wall behind Jeanette and I think it turned out great even though the lens gave a sligt vignetting here.
