Experimenting with environmental portraits part 2

The second day, we went to the lakeside in Islamabad for a high octane evening of Go- Karting at the 2F2F karting club. It had rained that afternoon and the cloud cover had broken up just before sunset, giving me the perfect opportunity  to continue my experiment with balancing strobe with ambient. and the sun went deeper down as we got there, with me fearing another day of disappointment, photography wise. but it was kind enough to stay while i set up. this time around, the first few pictures , including my favorite of Shahbaz, i didnt bother with a tripod or a light stand, or any light modification, simple set up, camera in right hand, flash in the other, in this case yn 560 mark III on about 1/8 - 1/16, or handing it over to a friend, to point at the subject. needless to say, this time the results were much much better. Success at last.

Shahbaz Khan : one of my most favorite pictures

Taimur Khan

Saqib and Taimur, and a beautiful beautiful sunset

Kurtas, and experimenting with environmental portraits.

on a recent trip with friends to the capital, Islamabad, for Kashif's nikkah (third from the left) . Been quite a while since i planned to try something where i mix ambient with strobe, and since i had recently (read 1 hour ago) bought a reflective phottix softbox umbrella, i decided this was the best time. i had the subjects, i had the reason, and i had the inspiration since the sunset that evening was pretty nice, and the weather had an unusual respite from the regular mid august heat and humidity. didnt want all my subjects to sweat out before the event itself. 

anyways, i set up. and miscalculating time as always, missed the sun by That much. using one flash on either side, on the right using a yn 560- III on full power in the reflective umbrella soft box, and on the left a yn 560 on 1/2 through a white shoot through umbrella i took the following, changing just the shutter speeds to change the exposure on the background.

Needless to say, i need to experiment some more, and that i did, the very next day.