Not to sound excessive, but as a rule I pack up to 10 Nikon Speedlights (or strobes) in my kit because I never know what any given shooting environment is going to call for until I’m on the set (unless, of course, I have the luxury of scoping it out ahead of time, which typically is not the case). Despite what might sound like an overload of Speedlights, I tend to build the lighting on my sets one flash at a time. Set up one strobe, snap a photo. Set up a second strobe, snap a photo. And so on. I do this because I like to see the additive effect that results from each new strobe introduced to the shooting environment. This way if I overreach with strobes and create too much or unnecessary lighting, it’s easy to spot the culprit and back down on the number of Speedlights.

But there are many times when a single strobe is sufficient to do the trick. In fact, using a lone-wolf Speedlight is often essential for creating a certain atmosphere or aesthetic integral to the photo session. Such was the case during Part II of a photo shoot with my model Rachel Jacob inside the historic, old Islenos buildings that are tucked like secrets on the grounds of the Islenos Museum in St. Bernard, La. (http://bit.ly/YyDDnz). I had decided to shoot Rachel inside the old Toca Grocery & Barroom (nicknamed the “Bucket of Blood” for the notorious booze-fueled fistfights that broke out on Saturday nights back in the day). This because the barroom had an old piano – one that had seen better days before it became severely damaged during the flooding of Hurricane Katrina, which wiped out virtually all of St. Bernard Parish, where the museum is located. Piano keys were badly broken and flooding had added a multitude of new layers of patina to the instrument. But, as the museum’s director and my good friend Bill Hyland has pointed out in the past, I live for patina (or, as Bill would say in an intentionally exaggerated Mediterranean accent, “pah-TEEN-nah!”).

Because the photo shoot took place at mid-day and I wanted to create a nighttime vibe, I would have to use a higher than normal shutter speed to trap out virtually all of the ambient light coming in from a pair of large windows on a wall facing the side of the piano (see top photo) where Rachel would be sitting. To soften the light from the strobe, I affixed a 24”-by-24” softbox – all of which was attached to a light-stand boom behind the bar counter. I would be using my cherished (and wonderfully inexpensive) Yongnuo wireless flash triggers (http://bit.ly/YHl8uV) to remotely trigger the strobe.

While I set up the gear, Rachel, a filmmaker and partner in the newly formed New Orleans-based company Good Luck Productions (http://on.fb.me/16nuHEe) set to work clearing the bric-a-brac, flowers and colorful decorations off the top of the piano. “It’s too happy,” she said matter of factly.

The photo below shows the softbox illumination and the sphere of light I intended to frame my model, Rachel, and the piano. (Notice the "happy" hat and flowers have been removed from the piano top. The "happy" plate on the wall would not appear in frame.)

We experimented with a few different camera angles, all intended to focus on her hands as they moved across the piano (Rachel actually plays piano, so capturing the natural movement of hands across the keyboard was a bonus).

But for the narrative I was seeking (this photo was to be part of a new series called “The Algorithm of Midnight”), the light was still too bright, the subject matter too en pointe. So, I clamped down even more on the shutter to cut out everything but a rim of light falling on her arms and hands and the edges of the piano, as well as parts of her legs. See final photo below:

If I let my imagination roam, this shot is of how I imagine Rachel might have looked playing piano by moonlight shining through a window, inside the empty Toca Barroom, circa 1930s, lost in the solitude of darkness and the haunting melody known only to her.