Single Strobe Sessions (Remix)

feat. VAB1979 (aka Queenie)

What if you had to light and shoot a picture but had no light stands or clamps to secure your flash? Well, someone could always assist and position the light for you, right? What if the person helping you out is also your subject?

Hmmm… Why not?

There are lighting details and a short feature on Queenie the fledgling artist (not the chemist) after the jump.

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Queenie is what I would call a 'closeted' artist. Her resume in drawing (primarily in pencil) is not as stellar as the one that she has built as a scientist. This dichotomy is something that I know all too well (except maybe for the being-a-stellar-scientist part). Not daunted by labels, she strives to pursue and hone her craft amidst the clamor by those who are less mercurial to return to the stable ground of rationality. I, for one, am all for her drive to unearth and fulfill forgotten dreams (I am rarely known as the voice of reason anyway).

We came up with the concept for the above picture as a way of declaring and affirming the emergence of Queenie, the artist. The lighting bullet points are discussed below:

• The flash is set at 1/16th power and is capped with a diffuser.
• The strobe is the only source of light as I knocked down ambient to the point where it barely registered in the final image (if I remember correctly, my camera was set at f/6.3 and 1/200).
• I give all the credit to my subject/assistant for holding the light at a position where it does the job while maintaining the grace to pose at the same time.

I hope that those of us who have old dreams that 'nag' us to this day, do not dismiss them as mere murmurs of the past.

More to come...

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Update: 

I forgot to mention how the paper of the sketch pad is also acting as a nice reflector that's filling in some of the shadows.