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It’s been a while since we’ve done an Art of the Partnership post, so we thought it was time for a new installment!  Let me just preface this post by saying that Ashley and I are totally not experts at artificial lighting.  We have gone through a lot of trial and error with our on and off-camera lighting setups, and we’ve definitely learned about lighting from some amazing photographers.  I’m going to go through what we started off using, and what we use now and how we work together during the reception to not get in each other’s way since there are two of us shooting simultaneously!  We are still constantly learning more and more about using artificial light to our advantage, but I think we have come up with a great system that has been working pretty well for us!  Please feel free to share any lighting tips in the comments section below!  Thanks for reading and we hope this gives some insight into how we shoot with on and off-camera flashes together!  -J

On-Camera Flash
When we first started shooting together, I bought a Canon 430exii.  I actually still have that flash, and it has really served us well these past few years!  Our first reception lighting setup was both of us shooting on-camera flash only.  I have to admit, at this point I literally only knew how to turn on my flash and that’s it.  All the settings were so foreign to me, so I read the manual and went online to learn about what all the settings do and how to control them.  We rocked this setup for a little while until I saved up to buy a Canon 580exii, and then we decided to use my 430 as an off-camera flash.

Off-Camera Flash (Stage 1)
Since we both now had Canon 580′s, we decided to get a light stand and use the 430 as an off-camera light!  The 480 was setup bare with no umbrella and no filters near the DJ area (most likely next to one of the speakers).  We set both of our flashes to Master and the 430 to Slave mode.  Using the same channel, we were able to both fire the off-camera flash.  All three flashes were set on ETTL mode.  This was super convenient for us since our off-camera light setup was SO simple and easy and we were both able to utilize the same flash unit.  The downside to this is a lot of times the flash would only fire for one of us if we took a picture at the same time or close to the same time.

Off-Camera Flash (Stage 2)
When the Canon 600EX-RT’s came out, we were SOOOOOOOO excited to get those babies in our hands.  We had to save up for a little bit, but we were finally able to purchase two 600′s each!  We now have two light stands and each control our own off-camera flash unit.  I used the amazing Melissa Jill‘s blog post to setup my flashes, and made a few adjustments to suit my shooting style and the always changing lighting situations.  The on-camera flashes are set to Manual mode and the off-camera flashes are set to ETTL.  Now during receptions, we each set up a light stand near the DJ; one on each side.  One light is bare bulb and the other has a white shoot-through umbrella on the stand.  This way we get two different looks!  I’m still trying to get used to shooting with the umbrella, but Justin Marantz definitely taught me a lot about getting depth in your images by placing the light source (or yourself) in the correct position!  Whoever is firing the flash with umbrella stands at a 45-120 degree angle relative to the flash.  Basically try not to have the umbrella in the shot, and don’t stand right next to the flash either.  Also depending on how much ambient light there is in the room, we will also turn off the on-camera flash while still firing the off-camera flash to get that depth!

Off-Camera Flash (Stage 3)
Along with using the umbrella during receptions, we have also incorporated using the off-camera flash with umbrella setup when shooting reception details as well!  Especially when you are shooting in a very dark room, it can be very difficult to get those detail shots.  Using OCF for details has been awesome for us because we can still get amazing shots in a dimly lit room AND they’ve got that depth that shows each and every curve.  We’ve found that placing the OCF with umbrella fairly close to the object we are shooting gives the best light distribution.  Lastly, we love when our couples want more portraits taken during the reception even when it’s pitch dark outside!  In these instances we are able to use our OCF setup to get some beautiful and dramatic portraits.