It was bound to happen. I was just starting a senior session. I had the location picked out, but I needed some flash to brighten up the scene. I set up my light, took my first shot, and got nothing. My flash didn’t go off. I checked my settings, tried again, still nothing. The pressure was on, but I had to find a quick solution. I quickly evaluated the situation and came up with a workaround solution and went on with the rest of the shoot. The session was a blast, and we spent the better part of the afternoon moving from location to location and got some great shots.

Problem solved, right? Nope. What went wrong? I still didn’t know what the problem was, and even though it was a successful session, I still needed to figure it out. I admit, I obsessed about this for a while going through the checklist of things that I had tried. Finally, while I was out raking some leaves, still thinking about this, I saw something that inspired me.

The sun was dropping from the sky and was creating a golden glow in the afternoon sky. I decided this would be a great opportunity to test my gear. The quickly hatched plan was to test my lights to make sure everything worked so that I could repair or replace any gear that wasn't operating correctly. I also took it as an opportunity to use some new tools.

The scene is pretty basic. It's looking out my backyard into an open field. I did some adjustments to darken the background first.