Shoots don't always run flawlessly like we want them to, but with a little patience and a Plan B, it's possible to take back control, as I've learned firsthand the other night during my session with Amanda.
I decided to take her outside of an old steel warehouse in the middle of Kutztown. I chose this location because I am incorporating urban exploration and fashion photography and thought this location was perfect. Once we arrived and I got set up it was around 4:15pm. The light from the setting sun was peeking through the trees behind us and spilling onto a large venting structure beyond a chain link fence in front of a cotton plant-esque patch of weeds on a hill I was going to have her stand on. The yellow light had illuminated the greenish paint of the structure in such a way that made it a vibrant lime green hue. It was absolutely gorgeous and I couldn't have been any more excited.
That is until I powered the strobes.
Nothing happened. No, I thought. DON'T DO THIS! I had spent my entire day prior to this in planning my day to NOT have this happen! My excitement immediately took a nose dive into panic. I was powering one Calumet Travelite 750 strobe from a Calumet TravelPak battery. I could not for the life of me figure out what had happened or where I went wrong. As far as I knew, everything was hooked up correctly. The battery indicated that it was fully charged - and it should've been, I'd only spent half of the day charging it. I unplugged and re-plugged in everything. Still nothing. I switched strobe heads. Nada. I felt really embarrassed for myself for having this happen and being totally helpless to the situation and sorry for my model because she just sort of stood and intently watched me calmly freak out. Just when I was about to abandon all hope and cancel the shoot, my model found me a POWER OUTLET on the building next to us! Hooray!
It wasn't my ideal situation, but I gladly took it. I plugged the strobes in the outlet, hoping that they still worked. They did. I now had power! I conducted the shoot as I would have, making the most of my new location. It was disappointing because I was limited by 15 feet of cord, but I made it work to the best of my ability. Luckily there was a neat set of black metallic stairs and a cyan door right next to the outlet so I worked mostly in that area. The colors contrasted well with her bright purple shirt, so it all worked out surprisingly well.
So, not all was lost. But I am definitely a little bummed that I couldn't carry out my original plan. Luckily my model was very understanding and patient with me and even offered to make herself available for a re-shoot.
The lighting set-up of the photo above was achieved by reflecting the strobe at half power into a 60'' umbrella camera left.
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