SCENARIO 29

Making Front Bokeh

Or as I like to say, “Go flash yourself.”

GOAL IMAGE

This is one of the coolest stinking tricks I’ve ever done. It can change any image. I can’t take full credit for this one—my friend Seth Miranda (IG: @LastXWitness) came up with it and showed me how to do it. I expanded on it from there.

To wrap your head around this technique and how it works, you have to know a bit about lenses and how they work. When light hits your lens, it’s not just hitting one piece of glass. It’s passing through multiple pieces of glass and making its way to your sensor. When your images have lens flare in them, it’s the light hitting those pieces of glass and bouncing around in there. Some lenses have ASC (Air Sphere Coating) to enhance the anti-reflective properties, so those lenses may be trickier to use successfully for this trick.

The wider your lens is, the smaller your bokeh balls will be. The longer the focal length of your lens is, the bigger your bokeh balls will be. Sometimes they’ll just be haze versus bokeh balls. It’s all about how the lens processes light as it passes through your camera.

FIGURE 29.1
GOAL IMAGE. I USED A STROBE ON CAMERA LEFT WITH A LARGE UMBRELLA. YOU’LL SEE BEHIND-THE-SCENES SHOTS AND OTHER VARIATIONS LATER IN THE SECTION.

CANON 1DX MARK II, CANON 24MM 1.4, ISO 1250, APERTURE 16, SHUTTER 1/250

Step by Step

1. Position your subject: Because the bokeh balls are essentially light circles, finding a darker background will help them show up more prominently. A lighter background will hide a lot of the light effect that you’re trying to create.
2. Set your camera exposure: You have two options here. You can set your camera to create a dark or black exposure and light your subject with another light; or, you can set your camera to take a properly exposed natural-light photograph. The first option will make your bokeh balls show up more.
3. Set your white balance: Your white balance can be set to auto for this or manually dialed in to whatever your natural-light exposure calls for.
4. Set your bokeh flash: You need a lot of light for this, so set your light (assuming it’s a smaller speedlight) to full power and adjust from there.

   If you’re using a more powerful light, start at half power and move it up if you don’t see the bokeh effect showing up.

5. Position your light: This is the tricky part. I usually hold my light (a light one like a speedlight or Profoto A1) in my left hand, super close (if not touching) my lens, and pointing into my lens.

   If you have a heavier light, or if you just don’t feel like holding your light, you can set it on a light stand right in front of you.

6. Change your angle: This is the tricky part. Every little millimeter that you move your light will change the angle that it hits your lens. This will change how it looks in your image. Move the light all around your lens. Shoot with it above, below, left, and right—everywhere. See what it does to the bokeh pattern.
7. Make adjustments: Once you see the light effect show up, you can play with it to change the effect. You can use more or less power to make the effect brighter or darker, and you can change your f-stop to change the size of the balls. Change your lens to see the difference it has on the effect. Have fun with this! There are limitless possibilities.

OPTIONAL: Throw any color gel you’d like on the flash to change the color of the bokeh balls. Experiment with different colors!

OPTIONAL: Black out your exposure and light your subject with a second off-camera flash. This will make your bokeh show up even more. It will also prevent the bokeh from showing up on the subject’s face because that light can be set to be brighter than your bokeh light. This is the technique I use in the example below.

Shot by Shot

FIGURE 29.2
TAKE AN ALL-BLACK EXPOSURE FIRST.

FIGURE 29.3
FOR THIS IMAGE, I TURNED ON THE FRONT CANON 600EXII SPEEDLITE TO TTL AND USED A 3' OCTA.

CANON 1 DX II, CANON 135MM 2.0, ISO 400, APERTURE 2, SHUTTER SPEED 1/250

FIGURE 29.4
I ADDED FRONT “BOKEH” LIGHT, A CANON 600EXII SPEEDLITE.

CANON 1 DX II, CANON 135MM 2.0, ISO 400, APERTURE 2, SHUTTER SPEED 1/250

FIGURE 29.5
I ADDED A CTO GEL TO THE FRONT BOKEH LIGHT, A CANON 600EXII SPEEDLITE.

CANON 1 DX II, CANON 135MM 2.0, ISO 400, APERTURE 2, SHUTTER SPEED 1/250

FIGURE 29.6
USING A LONGER LENS WITH A LOWER APERTURE TURNS THE LIGHT INTO A HAZE RATHER THAN SMALLER BOKEH BALLS. I CHANGED THE LENS TO THE CANON 24MM 1.4, THE APERTURE TO 16, AND THE ISO TO 1250, SO THAT THE SMALLER BOKEH BALLS WOULD SHOW UP. CANON 600EXII SPEEDLITE.

CANON 1 DX II, CANON 24MM 1.4, ISO 1250, APERTURE 16, SHUTTER SPEED 1/250

FIGURE 29.7
I USED A PURPLE GEL ON THE CANON 600EXII SPEEDLITE FOR THIS IMAGE.

CANON 1 DX II, CANON 24MM 1.4, ISO 1250, APERTURE 16, SHUTTER SPEED 1/250

FIGURE 29.8
BEHIND THE SCENES AT IMAGING USA ON THE CANON STAGE.

Potential Problems

This trick can be difficult depending on your lighting circumstances. Ultimately, the effect shows up best on the darker parts of the image, so try this in a lower-light scenario first. A wider-angle lens with a high f-stop (such as f/22) will create the most dramatic look.

You can do this outside on an overcast day. It just takes a lot of flash power, and you won’t necessarily see the bokeh quite as prominently because the light isn’t contrasting against anything dark behind it.

FIGURE 29.9
CANON IDX II, CANON 35MM 1.4, ISO 1000, APERTURE 9, SHUTTER 1/100

Practical Uses

This is a handy tool to use when you want to create a crazy look or elevate a photograph. Be careful not to overdo it. It’s a neat technique, but it can be easily overdone and most clients won’t want a full album of photos like this.

It really is a ton of fun to try this out, so get out there and go flash yourself! Oh, and hashtag it #goflashyourself so I can see it.