It’s been a few years since I’ve been able to enjoy winter shooting from the office. It’s actually real simple; put out some food, set up the gear, have it snow and shoot. It’s all real simple but the white stuff when you’re in a long drought, but such has not been the case this last month. Who you see above is a female White-headed Woodpecker (and how she came to be here is a whole other story). I’m shooting with the D4s / 800AFS with light provided by the ProPhoto B2 with the 2′ Octa w/grid. Why am I using flash and why the B2?
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The key here is, I don’t want you to see flash! The final photo has to look like what you think the light should look like. I shot this before and after of the perch so you can understand how and why I’m adding and melding the light. When it’s snowin, it’s dark and wanting to blur the falling snow, I need a long shutter speed. Birds are always moving so the first role of the flash is to stop the motion, get a sharp photo. Then, I want to remove the very blue quality of the light which flash brings back to an even 5500k. Lastly, the ProPhoto B2 w/Octa & Grid creates a very large light source for the size of the subject while having it “wrap” around the truck keeping it’s shape, form and texture. This of course is also given the birds so they look like a living critter and not a cardboard cut out. Now Sharon doesn’t really love when I do this as the open door is right next to her desk and snow piles up on her keyboard. So she takes advantage of my shooting to go out to the warm fire and leaves me to the cold and the fun ‘n the snow!