As a follow-up trip to the Powerscourt Forest on our first ProFoto encounter, we ventured out to Glencree Valley.


Wanting to get more moody lighting, we needed more control over the overall lighting of the scene at 2.8 aperture. The answer was clear… head out at night!

Torches in hand, and a gps to track our steps as we tried not to get lost in the woods, we headed out, walking from the road deep into the Glencree valley.

The clear night with a full moon allowed us to distinguish the tree silhouettes and terrain features just enough to pick a place.

Framing was a bit more difficult though, we needed a few test shots with the flash to see what we were shooting! After that, it was clear we had a good one. After setting things up to start in the pitch black forest, the camera ran out of batteries! 6 AA batteries later we were back on track.

Basic idea: to put emphasis on the path, and lead it to center the right part of the picture where the path joins the small river and follows along.

This time, equipped with a 3 meter manfrotto light stand, it was easier to mimic a high enough angled sunlight coming into the woods.

A far left behind and high enough light with the profoto New Reflector for the main light shedding in an angle to get the bloom effect. A RFi softbox to spill some softer light around the path lighted area from the top.

As a side effect of the usage of the RFi softbox, we got the small not visible fog in the environment really accentuated on the left.

At iso 50, f 2.8, we went slow on the shutter speed to get some small ambient light for the whole scene. This lead of course to the motion blurred trees on the background due to the wind. Something that we like at the moment.

It's almost fellow Brown Bagger Phil McDarby's forest season, we will be heading to the Wicklow forests soon for some more lighting action.

This photo was shot in the middle of the glenn valley at 12am with a full moon out…pleasantly eerie!

Photo by Maria Diez, Lighting by Eze Mastrasso