Take control of natural light and make your photos shine

One of the many advantages of owning your own studio is that you can create the exact light conditions needed to produce some stunning results. But how do you maintain that same quality when you’re shooting on location? We caught up with pro photographer and Nikon user, Sam Barker, who has mastered the art of working with natural light and his subjects to create that ‘studio effect’ in his location photography.

After being asked to go to Tibet and the Darién Gap (an area between Colombia and Panama) for a couple of commissioned travel pieces, Sam suspected that his medium format kit (which could only shoot images between the size of 24-36 mm and 100 – 127 mm) wasn’t up to the job as it had limited battery duration (they had no electricity to charge for 10 days) and may have struggled with the extreme conditions. So, he approached us about testing our D3X…

There are many incredible reportage photographers around, but Sam wanted to do something a little bit different. He explained that controlling the light was vital to getting the look he wanted so, in addition to the D3X, we hooked him up with our SB-900 Speedlight.

According to Sam: “I wanted to make the outside shots look like studio shots. I really wanted to concentrate on lighting the subjects in odd places to really bring them out of the background. The way I did this was to take a honeycomb filter from a studio monoblock, cut it to fit inside a softbox, and then fashioned the whole thing to fit the Speedlight.”

A great example of this effect is in the shot below taken in the Himalayas. You can see there’s not so much light spilling around, it’s all about creating atmosphere with what light there is.

Image © Sam Barker / shot with a Nikon D3X

Armed with only a backpack’s worth of equipment, Sam had an interesting solution when it came to setting up the SB-900s for the shoot – he hired local tribal kids to hold up them up.

“If I I’m doing a travel job, I always try to do that because it opens doors for you. They know the right people and you can get to places where you wouldn’t be able to get to if you were just turning up with you and your assistants. It’s a really good way to work I think and it really pays off if you involve the community in what you’re doing. I think on the whole they were pretty fascinated by us.”

Although Sam loves working with the communities he photographs, he also knows that great photos often require a degree of spontaneity, and sometimes you have to act quickly and take the opportunities in front of you, as the below photo demonstrates.

Image © Sam Barker / shot with a Nikon D3X

“This was a shot that I wasn’t allowed to take because it was at an army checkpoint going into Darién. I’d set up outside and they told me I couldn’t shoot, so I just put the Speedlight on a stand up against the window, went into the office and sat on the bench. I fired a couple of shots off without looking through the camera knowing that the pocket wizard would fire the flash outside. I got this shot and it’s one of my favourites. In a way, it looks like the most posed when in fact it’s probably the most candid. The soldier didn’t even notice.”

Image © Sam Barker / shot with a Nikon D3X

Image © Sam Barker / shot with a Nikon D3X

Image © Sam Barker / shot with a Nikon D3X

Image © Sam Barker / shot with a Nikon D3X

“I love to use Nikon equipment whenever I‘m away because it’s the best equipment I’ve used on location. When you’re in the field, it’s all about catching the spirit of the environment without taking up too much of the people’s time. It was really important to be able to think on my feet and get things done quickly. That, and the quality of the files, was where the Nikon gear really came into its own.”

You can read more about Sam’s travel adventures by visiting his website. What do you think of his shots? Do you have any tips on getting great lighting in your shots? Let us know.