Last week I got a text from a friends little brother asking if I could take some pictures of him and his girlfriend before their prom.  I agreed, we set up a time and I started to pack the gear.  We were going to meet a little after 4, so I knew the afternoon sun was going to be rough.  As with all the prom-goer’s in our town, they wanted the pictures at a local park area.  Almost all of the area was exposed to the bright sun and there was very little shade. I felt fairly well prepared for this since I had a plan going into it.  Here is the first shot in a very harsh mix of shade and beams of light coming down through the tree’s overhead.

Since this is the one place where every student goes to get prom pictures,you have to wait for the good spots to clear.  Once the one place with a nice shade cleared, I set up shop with their backs to a gray colored building and started to build my shots.

Now that I could finally control the light and not worry about the sun, I was able to get the even color I wanted.  For this I wanted a full length shot to show all of the dress and was quite happy with the horizontal lines that change color and also texture.

I did not notice the slight flash shadow until after I got the images back onto a full size monitor.  I was only using a single flash camera right so I could work quickly and move easily (as I’m only a hobbyist, I am my assistant).  Thankfully, it’s very slight and just enough to remind me that I still have tons of learn about this.  This last shot was of the other couple I shot.

Now the gear I shot with.  This was all done with the Panasonic G3 and either the Olympus 45mm f/1.8 or the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7.  For the flash, I used a Nissin Di-466 on the camera in TTL mode for the shots in the full sun and then moved to a bare Yongnuo 560 on a flashstand and triggered by a set of Cactus V4 radio triggers.  Overall, this setup works great and is very lightweight and easy to transport.  All I need now is an OMD E-M5… if only one of the 20 stores I’ve called would have one in stock…