Fashion Santa x Peaky Blinders - Plus my First Time using A Speed Light

Ok, so first of all, I need to say that the gentleman I was photographing was the fantastic Keith Maynard from Shifting Light Photography based in Hamilton, New Zealand - not Paul Mason, the actual Fashion Santa from Canada.

Although I have to admit, it was his shoot with the inimitable Peter McKinnon that was the original inspiration for the shoot. (Obviously, I’m no where near Peter, but so much fun to do!!)

Anyway - onto the Speed Light stuff & how super awesomeness fun it was… ;)

I’ve officially become a photography nerd I think.

I get excited when people say words like “speedlight” and “F1.4” and “120fps”…

In this case, one of my photography mentors messaged me saying he’d be coming over my way for an evening, and would I like to do some photography? Of course my logical reaction to that, was “sure - but would you be, like, Fashion Santa cross Peaky Blinders?”

Most normal people would run at that suggestion, but his answer was simply - “I have a tartan 3 piece suit… would that do?”

Now - excellent wardrobe choices aside, he also bought his giant Godox Softbox and AD200 & AD600 speedlights with the remote trigger that - with a few tweaks to the settings - fitted nicely only my Canon 80D.

The Big Picture - the stand in the foreground, my messy desk to the left, and a half painted divider to the right just keeping a little of the evening sun rays out. And, a very small, $13 wood-lock backdrop. Oh, and our bed cover on the floor… it’s amazing what you can make with a little bit of imagination and a REALLY small space!

So - set up and ready to go - what were the settings?

Well, number one - my shutter was 1/60… and truthfully, I NEVER go that low unless I’ve got a tripod. Handheld (which is most of the time) I have it on - at minimum - 125. So, for those of you wondering why we’re doing 1/60 handheld (just call us rebels ;) ) - actually, there’s a logical explanation. Because of the speed of the light strobe, it’s SO FAST, that if you go over 1/200, you start to see “banding” in the photo’s. This is because it’s actually capturing the shutter as it’s coming across the image area.

Ultimately, the speed of the light is actually replacing the need to have a high shutter speed.

I also had these at an F4, which is giving me pretty good clarity through most of the image. And, for the record, I should point out that I’m using a Canon entry level stock 18-55 lens. So I’m pretty stoked with the results I’m getting from a mid-level camera and a stock lens!

And the speedlight - well, we played with that to get the lighting we wanted. Some were too bright, some were to dark. So that was definitely just something to totally play with and see what came out of it.

Oh, and one other thing that was interesting - you can only do single shots. I do a lot of burst shots, as I love capturing the “in between” moments - so this was a different way of photographing too.

Mr Keith Maynard of Shifting Light Photography, Hamilton, New Zealand. Generally the photographer. Today, the subject. :)

The awesome part about these images, was that for most of them - we actually “hung” the light directly above Keith. It’s on a super strong C-stand, which is like a the Arnold Schwarzenegger of stands - well, compared to my little $40 softboxes and dainty tripods that I’m constantly worrying about tipping over! lol.

This is also only one light. Imagine how much fun it would be if there were like - 3 or 4 of these!! But a single light lends itself to some fantastic moody images - just the kind of thing I was going for. :)

Once they’ve been put through Lightroom - it’s amazing what a bit of editing magic can do! Here’s a before and after to check out the SOOC vs the end result.

SOOC & After Lightroom

I think it’s really important to note as well, that I’m not Photoshop savvy - that’s a skill I’m working on - but for right now - it’s all done in Lightroom. So you’ll notice that I haven’t fixed up the blanket on the floor. I forgot to take out the leg of the stand. I say this because every time you do something, you get a little better. Every time I look at these images, I realise one more little thing I could do to make them better. Grow every time you take photo’s, and one day you’ll take photo’s you never thought you’d ever achieve. <3

And, just to finish off - cos I think these photo’s are pretty awesome and Keith was such a fantastic sport to go with my I idea’s - here’s some of the other images. :)