Niki DaRold

While I have been living in London UK, I have been lucky enough to meet many interesting and talented individuals. One of which is Niki DaRold whom I met while taking a Photojournalism Course at the London College of Communication/University of the Arts London.

Originally from Italy and living in London for the past 2 years, Niki is an accomplished photographer who blew me away with his photo story of the alternative bike courier scene in London and his self portraits.

A couple of us photography geeks got together this last weekend to play with flash and share some techniques, the above photo of Niki was taken with the camera on manual, with an aperture of F8 for good depth of field in the foreground, and the flash unit on ETTL off to camera left (using the Canon off-camera shoe chord OC-E3).

Many would argue that the shadows cast by the flash from the nose and glasses takes away from the image, but I kind of like the effect. These shadows can be easily filled in with a flash unit on manual to camera right, if so desired.

The image is a good example of how manual exposure and ETTL flash can work together to create a dramatic lighting effect (Ive included the straight exposure, without flash below for reference). Now I dream of some high powered studio lighting units to enable me to light full body portraits and street fashion photography in the field... I will have to keep buying those lottery tickets for now.

Before Exposure Adjustment and Flash...


After Exposure Adjustment and Flash...