On Location: Tilt-Shift Mountain Biking

Step Two

 The real trick with location lighting is choosing the right quality and quantity of light for your subject. The bigger question is, what’s your creative goal for the shot? Sure, I could shoot this image with available light, use shallow depth of field, and get an image with soft focus. But I lose a lot of control over depth and contrast using available light. The image just isn’t good without flash. By adding my own light, I can illuminate the biker separately from the background and control the available light and flash ratio. 

I used one Elinchrom Ranger with a Free Lite S Head on the hillside to the left of the biker about 25′ away, and a sports reflector on the head to help project the light farther into the scene. The trick is aiming the light high so only the bottom edge hits the mountain biker and foreground grass. If the light is aimed lower, the field will be blown out.