Originally uploaded by mehampson
Quick break from my 40D notes for some Strobism. This oil lamp was lit basically from below with my Vivitar 285HV flash with a Cactus V2 trigger. I put the flash in telephoto mode and dialed down to 1/16th power, and wedged it between the table and the wall, directly behind the lamp.
This got me the exposure and overall effect that I wanted, but I still needed to shape the light a bit. I took a few small business and index cards and made them into really tiny barndoors -- if you could see through the lamp, you would see them behind the oil-filled bottom section -- and this shaped the light along the upper section quite well. To keep the edge of the table and bottom of the lamp clean, I took small scraps of paper and placed them directly on the flash head as small gobos, really just a half inch long on either side.
I also tried using a full CTO gel over the barndoor index cards to color the upper section's light, but ultimately had problems keeping everything tucked away without having to shoot at a really funky angle. That color looked great though, and it's definitely a technique I'll use in the future -- directing the flash output in different areas with different coloring.
These simple elements took some minor tweaking and adjusting, poking things with pens and whatnot to get them in the right place, but it's amazing what you can do with the contents of a desk drawer.
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