The Whip
November 4, 2007
As a couple of Sheffield venues appear to have downsized their live gigs to smaller, darker holes with no provision for stage lighting, I’ve found myself using flash a lot more than I would normally, when allowed.
The problem is, when there’s little or no stage lighting, leaving the flash on camera, leads to lifeless snapshots with no colour, so I’ve been experimenting with moving the flash off-camera wherever possible.
The main problem with off camera lighting at a gig is that you can’t really go leaving your flashgun lying around at one side of the stage, as in the commotion of the performance, the strobe is likely to go walkies, get crushed, kicked, doused in beer, set on fire, etc, etc. this means I’m limited to as far as my arm can reach, to my left, or the space directly in front or to the side of me, which doesn’t leave too much scope for creativity.
To trigger the flash, I’ve been using Nikon’s excellent Creative Lighting system, which is ready built into the D200 I use, so I can pop up the built in flash and trigger a speedlite pretty much anywhere, and control it’s power output from the camera, rather than having to continually mess with the flash.
Still, I’ve managed to eek out a couple of shots I’m happier with, but as the experimentation continues, hopefully I’ll get better!
