Making A Location Out Of No Location

Regular readers will know I’m a fan of the Elinchrom Ranger RX Quadra flash system. It’s combination of light weight and horsepower are the optimum for my work and while other photographers may need the sheer grunt and power of it’s bigger brothers, I prefer the portability and ease with which it can be carried when space in a sports car is at a premium. I also like the way it can save the day when everything starts to go wrong.

This shoot earlier this year had been planned for a while. Two valuable Porsche 911 Group 4 rally cars for Total 911 magazine, one of which had very significant provenance in Germany and was destined to be shipped to the Porsche museum in Stutgart the following week. A detailed telephone discussion with the owner and some Google Earth browsing found a stunningly beautiful scenic backdrop not far from the owner’s base. The weather was stable, high pressure, a second driver / assistant was arranged by the owner and we were booked.

Problem number one. One of the valuable cars had just returned from a workshop and hadn’t run since. We were getting rough running problems that could probably be easily sorted. If it was back at the workshop…. Problem number two. The ‘second driver / assistant’ cried off at the last minute, leaving just the two of us to shuffle three cars around, get action shots and try and sort out the running problems with the car. Oh, and the weather had come over all dull and grey

So the scenic location was now off limits. The Porsche’s owner understandably was reluctant to continue driving the car, so we bagged some panning shots less than half a mile from his base. But we had no location for static shots…

“There’s a car park around the corner, at the church hall..” I normally hate car parks, unless they’re the spectacular multi story type but I was beginning to get half a plan. The car park was just that – a church hall. Leafy shrubs and a church. The rough running Porsche would tick over, but restarting it was a major problem, so we had to keep it running. On straight through, 115 Db exhausts. In a church hall car park….

When this happens, there’s only one thing to do. Play down the background and play up the cars. Grabbing the case containing the Enilchrom Ranger RX’s Quadras, I set up the lights quite close to the cars, pointing downwards to make the beam fall short and illuminate the ground beside the car as well as bouncing off the 911 curves. Click the Elinchrom trigger onto the hotshoe of the Canon 1DS, a quick shot with the camera exposure set for the ambient lighting and the Elinchroms turned off gives a base setting, then power them up, pretty much to full on. There’s no time for flash meters or technical niceties, this is a gut feeling setup, the 911′s straight through exhaust is booming loudly out with the rally car urgent tickover that I personally love, but I’m certain must be attracting undesirable attention. A quick chimp at the Canon’s screen and by either clicking the power up or down, or dashing back and forth to adjust the lights and we have the look you see here.

If you find yourself in a situation like this, where you’re constantly dashing back and forth to move lights, two quick tips. First off, either mount your camera on a tripod or lay it down on the floor a the exact location you were composing the shot from.That way, when you return from tweaking a light stand, you don’t have to think about exactly where you were standing when you say that composition you liked in the viewfinder. Secondly, when setting the lights, any strobe for that matter, stand behind it and look down the path of where you expect the strobe to fire and visualise where it’s going to end up. If you’re going for a look like this where the flash is the dominant lighting source, then you’ll find it far easier to see where the light will fire by standing behind the head, a bit like looking down a rifle sight.

Finally, compose the shot. By laying flat prone when shooting on a 70-200 zoom, the aggressive stance of the Porsche is enhanced and the distracting and boring background is played down. The second shot to aim for is a super wide angle, shot from very close in. The dramatic light fall off outside of the beam of the Elinchrom head plays down the boring rhododendron bushes and concentrates the viewer on the cars.

Of course, you don’t have to use Elinchrom for this effect, a bag full of Speedlites will do the job, but the extra power available means that even in the blaze of sunshine, you have enough grunt to overpower the ambient light and put the focus on your main subject.