This photograph is from my recent trip to Miami for Photo Workshops Miami. The night after the workshop, several of us went out for one more night of shooting, before I returned Boston. We were shooting below the MacArthur Causeway Bridge. Our wonderful model from the workshop, Suzy joined us.
The photograph is a single frame, lit with one Dynalite Baja 400WS strobe with a reflector, to the left of the camera. The Baja is a monolight with a built in battery. I wrapped the end of the reflector in Rosco Cinefoil to control where the light would hit. I folded the bottom of the Cinefoil slightly up to prevent spill light on the ground.
The photograph is a mixture of strobe and ambient light. When mixing strobe and ambient light, you start your exposure with the element you cannot control. I started the exposure by reading the light on the bridge and the background using the meter in the camera.
My exposure for the image was 13 seconds, f16 at ISO 400. I set the strobe output slightly higher than the ambient light in the background. This makes the background slightly darker and my model stands out. To read the strobe I used a Sekonic 478 Light meter. During the 13 second exposure, I timed and fired the strobe 3 times with the PocketWizard Plus III, I was holding. We marked out the 3 positions where the model would leap and I would fire the strobe.
I used a cable release to prevent possible camera shake. As soon as I pressed the cable release to start the exposure, Suzy leaped as I press a test button on my Pocket Wizard Plus III to fire the strobe. We repeated it twice more. After the 3rd leap, the model walked off the set while the camera was still exposing. . This was shot on my Nikon D800 with a 17-35 f2.8 lens on my Induro tripod.
The photograph mixes movement along with timing between the photographer and the model. The lighting is from four sources, although I only added one.