I had a happy accident during a photo shoot with Thriving Ivory last month (see my first shoot with them in Toronto HERE).
We were in a NYC photo studio and, after doing a traditional shot in front of a red velvet curtain, I pulled out a few scrims to use as background elements.
I wanted the wall to go pure white, so my assistant James Burger pointed a 400 w/s UniJr Dynalite at the wall behind the middle scrim. We used a Pocket Wizard for triggering.
I put two Nikon SB-900 units with umbrellas in the front and took a test shot of James. The SB-900’s had gone into sleep mode and didn’t fire, but the Dynalite was at full power so it blasted the white walls and lit up the whole room.
Thinking this was a mistake, I woke up the front strobes and took another test shot, but it just didn’t have the same shadowy mood on James’ face.
I wound up shooting this setup using only the single light source. I extended the ceiling and toned in Photoshop to complete the picture.
(Nikon D3, 24-70 lens, ISO 800, 1/250 sec, f/5.6)
To learn more about working with one light, I highly recommend the OneLight Workshop DVD by my friend, Atlanta photographer Zack Arias. More info here.