NATASHA - Usovo, Russia
I was trying for something with a bit more dramatic contrast than your average umbrella-lit shot, to fit better with the theatrical nature of dance, so I used only hard light here (two bare zoomed speedlites behind and on either side of her, with the on-camera flash acting only as a trigger.) However, I did take advantage of Natasha's raised arm as a makeshift fill card, to soften the shadows on her face a bit.
I wish I could've moved that lens flare up higher in the frame (more like a spotlight), but could find no way to do so in the time I had with the equipment I had available. The background was too cluttered for my taste, but because I only had a a few minutes to take this and no better angles to shoot from, and because killing all of the ambient light and making the background black wouldn't really fit with the other shots in this set, and because I wanted to shoot no wider open than f/3.5 to decrease lost frames due to out-of-focus eyes, and because of the limited size of the room and the need for at least a three-quarter shot, rather than a headshot, I was left with no other alternative but to do some blurring of the background in post, which is far from my favorite activity.
As always, photography always requires compromise of some kind, which can make things difficult, but it wouldn't be nearly as interesting otherwise:)
