Taking wedding reception photos. I would like to create extremely shine hair on the guests.?

Yet I can only do that with high power light which in turn washes away the face colour. Any suggestions in balancing both. My guests are mainly asian and are black hair so it is important that I creat texture.

Taking wedding reception photos. I would like to create extremely shine hair on the guests.?

Sheek's experience shows in her answer. She mentions that she would like the slaved flash to shine down and not light the faces. Don't we all wish!

My variation on her idea is to bounce a slaved flash in a small silver umbrella off the ceiling. I set the ratio (after measuring with a flash meter) so that the bounced lighting is about 1 to 1 1/2 stops less than my on camera flash at the distance I will be shooting. You can use more than one bounced light to more evenly light the scene if needed. Evening out the light allows you to work the room better as you move around. I tuck these lights in out of the way places, like near the caterers and tape the light stands down very well. I also use a light like the Sunpak/Vivatar 383. I don't want any wires for people to trip over, or have to run extension cords because the outlet is clear across the room and probably being used anyway.

Vance

Taking wedding reception photos. I would like to create extremely shine hair on the guests.?

In my opinion, the MAIN issue I have to work on with this type job is a dilemma created almost every time my subjects have dark hair, and I do not have good lighting control of the background. The background must be sufficiently lighted, otherwise, when it goes dark, only faces show on subjects -- no delineation for subjects hair.

If you can slave flash the background so that it doesn't go dark, then your main flash will create a "sheen" on Asian hair because it is so shiny to begin with.

A luxury would be if there would be to light from the top down on the tops of their heads, without lighting their faces with this light. You'd just about have to use a boom -- maybe not feasible at reception. However, this method would create a dazzling reflection "crown" on the shine of their hair without over exposing the faces.

All the best to you!

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