The Story Behind the Photo

May 2025: Portrait with One Added Light

Roger Young

I took the photo at WPPI (Wedding and Portrait Photographers International) in Las Vegas

There are rows of booths set up as photo venues, some of them are themed based on a company’s booth.  Some are just sponsored by the convention, this was shot at one of the WPPI booths.  Most of the time there are instructions on basic settings: ISO, Shutter Speed, Aperture. If there is added flashing light, you will need to use a flash trigger.  There is also contact info for how to send the photos to the model.  I have included a shot of what that looks like, but it is not for this model.

There was the natural light of the hall (although with my shutter speed and low iso I really got not much light from this source.  There was a big octobox that was on constantly, this was the ambient light on the scene.  Then off to the left of the photographer is another octobox set as a strobe, this is the one added light.

The dancer was doing some basic spins.  I spotted the orange fabric and asked her if she could throw it and pose.  We tried some spins, but the fabric never looked right at the right time of the spin.  So, I opted to just have her throw it up and pose as it drops.  At these events you only get a couple of minutes, so I had to hurry, I think I got a total of 10 shots.  My Camera was the Sony A7RV (61MP monster), ISO 200, 1/200 (it is the fastest I could go with the strobe), f5.6 with a 35mm f1.4 GM lens.    

As you can see, there was lots of stuff outside of the frame. I made the decision that I was not going to be able to get a 2x3 aspect ratio, without a lot of Photoshop, so I went with a 4x3 (or 8x10) aspect.

I was able to clone out the seam in the backdrop and take out the hangers on the top of the backdrop.  I was not happy that there was a different colored floor but decided not to try to edit that.  Other than the cloning and masking to get out the distractions, my editing was:

White balance set to Daylight

Contrast +16, Exposure + 0.1, Shadows -37, Blacks -32, Highlights +12, Vibrance +4, Clarity +5.

I Sharpened the whole image and then reduced the overall sharpening effect by increasing the masking effect only applying the sharpening to the edges of the dancer.  Then I exported the image for my submission into the Portrait with one added light contest.