Syreta Unleashed

There are many aspects when it comes to learning photography. We all pretty much start the same way: learning what most of the buttons on the camera do. From dials, switches, and buttons to the intricate menu system, it’s a daunting task, but you can only get better by picking up the camera and shooting.

After that, we quickly move on to exposure and composition. These we can learn through videos and reading. There’s somewhat of a science to it, so you don’t necessarily need to be using the camera to learn it, but it does help a lot.

While you do all those things, you simultaneously learn and practice how to edit the pictures you’ve been taking. By downloading shitty overpriced presets from influencers and following current editing trends, you slowly begin to learn the software and discover just how far you can push the RAW files coming from your camera.

Unfortunately, that’s where most photographers stop. They learn how to find light and take a good photo with the natural light provided by that gigantic ball of fire in the sky.

But for those of us who want to keep learning photography, we move on to flash, more specifically, off-camera flash. This is where the magic truly happens. And just to complicate things even more, you add multiple flashes.

With so much automation at hand now, you would think that it’d be easy to get great shots, and you might get lucky and get some, but if you really want to get some dynamic images, you have to learn light output ratios.

The cherry on top is adding color gels to the flashes to produce some incredible color.

Syreta and I decided to take advantage of her skin color and contrast it with blonde hair to create some truly incredible images.

Having the ambient room lit by a few flashes with gels made for some really creative opportunities. The only light directly on her was a giant softbox at a really low power setting so the light gently kissed her skin and gave it a bit of a shine.

This is by far the longest shoot we have ever collaborated on. Having three flashes really made each pose, color palette, and location take four times as long as what we are used to. We’ve been shooting together for so long that we can just fly through most sessions, but not today.

Regardless of the time and effort, I think these are some of the most stunning images we have created in a long time.