Multiple Flash

Flynn Bryan climbs through an inflatable obstacle course at Tiger Bounce in Columbia, Mo. on April 15, 2015. Bryan was attending a birthday party for his sister's friend. "I like running through this," Bryan said, "You have to be fast or the monsters will get you."

            This is my first experience with using multiple flashes on location. The set-up went pretty quick. I found where I wanted to shoot and position the flash that was on the stand where I wanted it. I was holding the flash that was the key light. I set the power of the background flash at 1/16^th power and the handheld flash at 1/8^th. All of the exposure adjustments came from either the camera or the key flash. The background flash remained the same throughout the entire shoot.

            The only technical issue was that I put my Canon flash on the stand, and was holding the Nikon flash (from the locker). For some reason the Canon wouldn’t act as a slave. So I switched the Nikon to the back position and then held the Canon flash. This still wasn’t working. I had the Canon on master and the Nikon on receiver. I found out that there is a setting in a menu on the Nikon flash that activates the slave function. The switch on the body of the flash is apparently just for show.

            The other issue was that I had an area that I was focused on in the inflatable obstacle course and the children kept going on the other side. I would adjust, and then they would go to the side that I was originally set up for. I eventually had one child go in the middle, which worked out well because that was in the coverage area.

            This was another assignment in that I was looked at oddly while I was trying to shoot. My partner had little issue with photographing in Tiger Bounce. A possible suggestion for next semester would be have an assignment where the students work on headshots and make badges for the class. It is interesting how having your picture on a card around your neck makes you “official.” This is just a thought.  The timing was a little off because of a birthday party at the place. So for large chunks of time there were no children running around. Other than that, it went smoothly.