Polynesian Dance Portrait

Just last week I was asked to take some photos for a local Polynesian dance club that's based here in Santa Barbara. Well, the shoot went well but we had to battle a lot of problems...

1. Huge fire in SB = sky looks like a scene from Lord of the Rings! Straight Mordor status!
2. 30mph winds = Hair nightmare and umbrellas, softboxes and other big light modifiers are out of the question
3. Seaweed = girls don't like seaweed...enough said...
   

Considering the girls needed these pics for an upcoming flyer, they needed the photos right away. What to do? Find a shady spot! I saw another guy taking some photos near the rocks and I thought, "what a great idea!". So I moved the girls into a nice position on the rocks (where the wind was not so powerful) and I took this shot.

Settings: This is a fairly easy photo to take...I first exposed for ambient light in the scene and then I stopped down about 2 stops so I could darken the distracting rocks. I wanted to have the girls as the focal point so I dialed in my flash to expose them properly. This was with one bare flash gelled with a 1/2 CTO filter (to add some warth) up high off to the camera's left triggered wirelessly via Elinchrom Skyports (Cool little devices). I had my bud, Tuan, aim the flash high and at the girl in the back to feather the light. I had to dodge and burn a little in post processing to get everyone evenly lit, but I didn't have to use too much.

Quick recommendation when taking pics with multiple people: take a bunch of shots at the same location...i took about 5 shots of this scene and each one had a problem or two. Someone wasn't smiling, someone blinked, someone was looking somewhere other than the camera, etc. Doh! By taking multiple shots I was able to clone one girl's face from another picture into this one so everyone looked nice. It's a bit of work in photoshop, but can you tell which one has been worked on?

I hope this helps and remember if you're flashing, try to get the flash off of the camera and the results will be way more dynamic. You don't need to get a wireless system like me. I actually started with a simple wire solution. Even if your camera doesn't have a flash output, you can buy an adaptor that goes on your hotshoe and it will convert it for you so you can use an off camera wire. Check out Strobist for more in depth info on off camera flash. Lastly I've been reading Joe McNally's new book "Hotshoe Diaries". This is a really cool book if you want to learn more about off camera flash.