The Malibu Artist: The Challenge at Sunset: Malibu Light

When it comes to light, I really can't ask for a better place in SoCal to photograph than Malibu. Whether it's portraits, weddings, or fine art photography it's just a great place to shoot.

Malibu stretches 27 miles along a jagged coast that pretty much has a photographic opportunity at nearly every bit of those 27 miles (minus the lagoon, which is sadly, another topic in itself recently). It's why hundreds of couples chose Malibu as a destination for their beach wedding every single year.

Now I hate cliches, but in Malibu it really is all about the light. I can't think of a better place I've been so far (okay maybe the Masai Mara in Kenya is better) that offers such a unique and advantageous lighting source. Malibu is unique in that it's coast runs East and West for roughly half of the 27 miles and runs North and South on the other half. This is a photographers dream.

Now utilizing that light to it's maximum is another topic, especially at sunset, when the light is best. Sunset is my favorite time to shoot in Malibu. It's also the most challenging.

The Challenge:

For anyone shooting at sunset, the challenge, if you aren't shooting a silhouette, is to expose the whole picture evenly from front to back to capture the details of the image in both the dark and light areas. Now when I am photographing a person within a natural landscape I normally use an external light source (including a reflector) for the subject. When I'm just photographing a landscape or waterscape without a person incorporated into it, I don't usually use an external light source.

Below is an example of an image where I incorporated subjects with the rocks at El Matador Beach in Malibu. Notice the balance from the front to the back in lighting. There is detail, ratio, and clean highlights within.

Now the image above is a technically difficult lighting situation. First and foremost, let me say that it is not a HDR image. Many photographers often mistake some of my work as HDR photography but in reality I'm not a fan of HDR photography and find it rather unappealing quite frankly. It is a single photograph, and not multiple images placed on top of each other.

Rather the image above is carefully planned. One thing I always try to incorporate into all my images is a clear and natural sky. If you are shooting sunsets, especially sunsets in Malibu or on the beach, it's important to have true color in your skies. More often than not I see photographers whose whole wedding portfolio consists of couples in beautiful places with white or "washed out" skies. Many photographers say they shoot those white skies to create a dreamy effect. Quite frankly, I feel most of the time it's because many photographer's don't understand how to properly expose a sky.

So how is it done? First of all, you must become acquainted with the practice of good metering. Like I've stated before in my previous blogs. I do not use an external light meter when I shoot. I've gotten to be best friends with my in-camera meter.

How I Did It:

For a scene like the one above and like most scenes I always use ISO as the baseline for all other calculations. I didn't want the image to be too grainy so for this image I used a 400ISO.

1. Took a metering of the brightest spot in the sky (just behind the rocks) AND
2. Mentally calculated the amount of light output I would need to illuminate the foreground.

Now my external flash unit is not your conventional top of the line flash unit. Aside from using my dedicated Canon 580Ex, I use a few Sunpak Auto 2000DZ Shoe Mount flashes that I've tied together.

Yes...that's an old flash. But I use it for good reason. It's my secret to achieving my unique lighting. I can put them anywhere, at any angle. Plus they are light in weight. But most importantly, I can manually control the light out put on them. I still don't trust any automatic flash systems. Even my $500 Canon Flash doesn't provide me the results as a fully manual flash like the Sunpak.

To achieve the unique lighting of the image above I fired two Sunpak flashes using Slaves. One flash on the right from about 30 degrees. One flash on the left from about 45 degrees. I had a Difusser on each flash to smooth the output. The output was determined by the measuring the light on subjects.

I also have my Canon fully auto flash with a bounce card pointed directly at the sky. The light bounced off the card and provides me just a bit more kick.

So basically if my subjects in my meter where two or three stops underexposed, I upped the power on the flashes to cover those two or three stops. This allows me to keep the camera setting exposed to the sky, so that my sky comes out true in color.

It took practice, but with time I perfected my method. I would gladly accept any questions regarding the technique so don't be shy! Until next time...

Below are some more images I've shot both weddings and nature using the same techniques.