Lunch Break

I sometimes spend my lunch break studying photography. Whether it be reading online, reading a book I have, or snapping photos, I like to enhance my skills.

This particular lunch break I decided I would try to turn our boring conference room into a photo studio. It's your typical conference room - 4 walls, big white board, long table, and two doors. Nothing special, but certainly a place you wouldn't think you would take a portrait in.

So, I set up one Canon 430EX speedlight camera right with a shoot-thru umbrella. This was going to be my main light. I then set up another Canon 430EX speedlight at the end of the conference table. I got some books to prop the speedlight on and grabbed a plant from a co-worker's office. This is what was going to give me my background. I oriented the speedlight to shoot thru the plant, giving me a nice effect for the background. I then added a gel to give me some color.

I used the E-TTL function of the Canon 40D to fire the flashes. I had the main light in group A and the background in group C. What's nice about E-TTL is that you can set up the speedlights in their correct group and tell the camera what ratio you want to use. It then figures out how hot the flashes need to fire in order to get the proper exposure.

I took this photo, among others, and I was very happy with what turned out. It also helped that my co-worker stepped in to model or you'd be looking at a conference room chair.