"Cabo Smiles"

 

"Cabo Smiles"
©David A. Ziser

This image was also made while we were in Cabo.  LaDawn asked me to photograph her family while we were there.  I was happy to oblige - I'm even giving her a 30% discount since we're related ;~)  Anyway, about the image. We had a gorgeous location, the ocean, and clear, sunny weather. The only flash I had with me was my Canon 580 EXII and planned to fire it remotely with my Quantum Freewire radios.  But it was still going to be tough to use this single 50 watt second strobe in this really bright lighting. It just wasn't powerful enough to put a "direction of light" on the scene.  I decided to go to Plan B and not use the strobe at all.  There was a large rock outcropping where we were going to take the photographs.  I decided to forgo trying to get my coveted "direction of light" on the scene and just work with the ambient light in this shaded area of the beach.  I figured that by placing my three subjects in the shadow of this large rock and getting them exposed correctly, albeit without a "direction of light" on them, the sun lit ocean background would render in a beautiful pastel key of blue, which it did. I also needed to use a really shallow depth of field too to really throw the background out of focus.  I shot wide open with my new Canon 100mm F2.8 IS Macro lens - wow, what an optic - one of the sharpest in the Canon lens arsenal. The clothing selection was perfect for this shot yielding a wonderful pastel key soft light portrait of LaDawn's three children. I love how the shot turned out.  So did LaDawn. Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with Canon 100mm F 2.8 IS Macro lens, F 2.8 @ 1/500 second, ISO 200.  Enjoy!  -David