Some issues on the lighting for me.. I wish your camera left subject had some fill in behind her (as you camera right subject does).. I also, think that this would have been even better... if you took an exposure for just the ambient.. and then blended it in post to "naturally" light the rest of the water and sky up a bit more.
I know you needed a very fast shutter for the "shot" we see... but the negative by-product is a very darken background : (
Lastly, some CTO on the lights would have better matched to your ambient light.
Nice timing to get the heart shape in this shot, Kurt. You have the water lit up well. Bonus for the sky behind.
Still, when I first viewed this, I found the depiction of the figures to be the weak point. The girl on our left blended into the background too much and I didn't pick out her pose without careful study of the picture. The foreground brightness distracts from the figures too. The solution might be more light on the background behind the girls, but some of that background is far in the distance.
@Travis - interesting, i was going for a slow shutter actually - that is 0.3" - i have lighter ones but i prefered that since the heart is more evident against a darker background.
regarding the fill you are 100% correct - i had another light there but due to the beauty of cheap triggers - it didnt fire
WOW!!! Your kidding! Nice!! I was actually talking about flash and slow shutter with some friends.. and I was trying to figure out exactly how slow I could go, and not get blur... ...
So, in this case @ 0.3" your sky was exposed.. and everything (water and models) in the foreground was totally in shadow.. thus, the flash froze that, and then sky burned in.. nice..
I found in my testing that I can use a slow shutter like this for flash and get the nice ambient light too... BUT, I need to make sure that the shutter is not too slow where it starts to expose the foreground... thats when I was getting blur.. the key is to keep models in shade.. you did this well!
Travis, stop down...
the beauty of these shots is that you never have to worry about blur.
try f16, exposure time for the background, and the foreground will be so dark that it will ONLY be exposed by the flashes, and since flash durations are usually quite a bit quicker than 1/1000 of a second you will have razor sharpness.
Travis, stop down...
the beauty of these shots is that you never have to worry about blur.
try f16, exposure time for the background, and the foreground will be so dark that it will ONLY be exposed by the flashes, and since flash durations are usually quite a bit quicker than 1/1000 of a second you will have razor sharpness.
Ah! So, even if I get a Looooooooooooooooooong shutter speed as result of stopping waaaaaaaay down.. (in order to get the sky to register).. My flash will freeze foreground even if they move around... as long as they are in complete darkness in the exposure (test by taking a shot with no flash, to ensure the shutter time is not exposing subjects, only BG)..
... 
). In fact, I'd cut some of the light on the model on the R.