I usually spend the Christmas holidays in the Southern Hemisphere, while I live in the Northern Hemisphere. Every year around this time I make a ‘Happy Holiday Photography’. This year I had a weird feeling. Crisis, early elections, unstable weather in both continents, the winter did not seem to be winter in the North and summer did not seem like summer in the South. So I made this picture from the inspiration of the times that we live in.
Merry Christmas © Marcelo Isarrualde
The hour of the realization of the photography was very important, as I wanted it to still be daylight but I also wanted the street lights to be lit. For a moment I tried with different locations in the neighborhood Raval in Barcelona, since the structure of the urban neighborhood is very diverse and full of passages.
Because of the high amount of natural light the flash was too dominant and gave the environment an artificiality, but I liked it since it was not a typical ”Christmas look”.
I then tried a darker passage, which had an open window to a bar in it, and the result improved. In this case the illumination of the flash was direct and wide since I wanted to simulate the natural light of the passage itself that is seen in the upper right corner of the photo.
I put a Yongnuo 560 flash on a monopod with a battery Godox Power Pack PB820. I put it from a lower point of view than the natural light of the passage for the illumination to be flatter and this way we can see the faces of our friends with more sharpness.
Finally I did some more photographs of the street in the same passage but this time I decided to extend the surface of the light source for the illumination area to be larger, and at the same time be able to decrease the contrast a little.
I did not want to increase the ISO too much, so I realized the photographs with tripod and very low speed.
Lighting diagram
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