HOW IT WENT DOWN

For Independence Day, I wanted to try something a little different. I literally thought of this idea the day before. My son was a little reluctant to come along, but in the end he did. It’s rare that I get a photo of him. Hard to believe he is only 13 years old! I’ve done car shoots with smoke before, but what I wanted to try this time was lighting the underside of the car with the red, white, and blue. The other idea was to use smoke bombs I’ve had in my garage for years to provide something extra.

Thanks to the Magmod system and the Godox lighting ecosystem, set up was actually really quick, and I’ve done enough dusk shoots to already know the ballpark settings (all detailed out below) Entire time on site, from set up to take down was less than 30 minutes. Test shot was taken at 7:58PM and then final shot was taken at 8:14 PM.

The hardest part was, my camera was so far away from the smoke bombs that the wireless app function didn’t work on my iPhone. So that meant I had to light the bombs and then run all the way back to my camera to push the shutter button. I got quite the workout!

SET UP DIAGRAM

Here’s the set up diagram. For those who have shot with me before, this is a very recognizable set up, as it is more or less my go to (except for the gels under the car part)

THE GEAR

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1 Nikon Z6 - Get it ($1600)
1 Nikon 85 F1.8S - Get it ($700)
1 Sony 120 XQD card - Get it ($160)

2 GODOX AD200 - Get it ($300)
4 GODOX TT600 - Get it ($70)
1 GODOX X-PRO - Get it ($70)

3 Manfrotto Nano Stand - Get it ($110)
1 Manfrotto 190 Go Tripod - Get it ($210)
1 Manfrotto BHQ2 XPRO Head - Get it ($160)

2 MagSphere - Get it ($60)
1 MagGels - Get it ($50)
3 MagGrip - Get it ($30)
3 MagShoe - Get it ($60)