Understanding Lighting

            Lighting plays such a crucial role in all photography, but travel photographers deal with special tight constraints, since most photobuyers want ‘blue sky’ shots. This often means waiting -- and waiting -- for the sun to come out. (Which by the way can seem pointless and a waste of time to accompanying non-photographer partners. This can in turn lead to friction, so educate your partner as to exactly what you are doing and why!)

            When on location I always take a small kit to use in hotel rooms at night or when it is raining. The kit comprises: flashgun with sync lead, small softbox, small lightweight stand, and a 20-inch Lastolite reflector. Used with small still life subjects, this kit enables me to shoot "studio" pictures anywhere, and can be used for portraits as well. It means also that I always have something to shoot.

            But being real life, things don’t always work out according to the Master Plan. On a recent shoot in Japan I ended up parted from this kit, which I’d left in a suitcase in another city hotel. I had to improvise, and fast, for my project at hand shooting some attractive-looking lunchboxes, and catching them before they disappeared down the gullets of some hungry travelers!

            One thing I did have was a metre square of non-reflective black cloth, which I use as a portable background. I put the lunch boxes on a coffee table, and put the bedside 60 watt desk light over the top from behind on a chair, then used a newspaper Sellotaped up against my tripod legs to reflect fill from in front. Using an 80A filter to correct the tungsten light to daylight, the pictures are a fraction warm in tone, as this filter is for 3,200K studio lights, and domestic are around 200K lower. But it worked out okay and they look like studio pictures otherwise.

            This serves to show that a lot of photography is ‘thinking on your feet,’ and with travel photography it is also ‘on the run.’ Never be afraid to experiment. It's usually only a few frames after all, and it might just work. The lunchbox pictures are now with a stock agency, so it worked for me!