Golden Hour Yoga Shoot in Ferndale
Utilizing golden hour & off camera flash to create a stylized dramatic image
If all my dreams could be in golden hour, I'd be sleeping all day. For this particular shot I wanted to balance that perfect golden mood with some off camera flash to get a dramatic, almost movie quality image (or do my best to I suppose). I also just acquired some new gear so I figured this would be a perfect test run.
For this particular shoot I used the following: (click for affiliate links to Amazon)
- Nikon D750
- Tamron 24-70mm f2.8
- Godox AD200 Strobe
- Godox X1T-N Wireless Trigger
- Godox 47" Octogon Softbox
- Impact Heavy Duty Light Stand
This was the first go around for the big Godox softbox so I was excited to see how much this big boy could spread some light. I wanted to use the sun as a rim light and use the strobe as the key to *hopefully* light up the entire subject. I positioned the strobe (inside the softbox at full power) about 2 feet in front, camera right, of my lovely girlfriend/model/yoga master (quite the combo). I then laid down and shot from from the ground to get a more dramatic, powerful angle, as well as to get that beautiful sky and light. I wanted some depth of field so I zoomed all the way in to 70mm and shot *almost* wide open.
Camera Settings: (view this image full res on my Flickr page)
- Aperture: f3.5
- Shutter Speed: 1/1000
- ISO: 100
- Focal Length: 70mm
I did a good amount of editing, color grading, and retouching on this image to achieve the look that I envisioned. That included removing the building on the right and adding a couple more clouds in the sky. I also used a gradient map to give it that cinematic blue/orange hue. It's one of the first times I've used that technique in a published image so I was excited to see how it would come out. If you wanna know more about any of the techniques I used feel free to shoot me a message and I'd be happy to share!
