Hi Key Lighting

I've always been a fan of Hi Key images. That's to say images with a lot of bright white. Portraits on a seamless white background with the background completely white. It's something I've never been able to do with a portrait before. I only have the one flash so it makes it a bit difficult to get that white background pure bright white.

This weekend I borrowed a flash from my dad. He has an old Minolta Maxim 7000 film system that he never uses so I picked up the flash and added it to my lighting. This flash is pretty much unusable for anything else when it's off the camera it was made for. It's a dedicated flash with no easy way to adjust the power output. The head doesn't tilt or swivel either so aiming this flash took some creative positioning.

That is all OK for my needs at this time though. I just needed a flash to blast my white background and turn it pure white. This flash was more than enough for those needs. I tore my 8 year old son away from his computer game on my laptop and asked him to model for me so I could test out this flash on the background. I used my umbrella and flash for the main light and away we went. Basically this works the same as my black background that I use but I was not worried about spilling any light onto the background this time. I normally will try to control that on the black background.

What I ended up with was this fantastic Hi Key portrait. I am really please with the results.

 

I don't think the borrowed flash will suffice for long. I have plans of picking up another more modern flash that will allow me some easier control over direction and intensity of the light but I also don't think my dad will be getting this flash back any time soon.

Chris.