Midday portraits are not always the easiest to pull of pleasingly in mid-day light. Such was not the case with Ed the beekeeper.

To make things a little more challenging, I had already done a story a couple of years ago on a different Beekeeper, and the making of honey, so the mystery of the story to come was absent,and that alone can sometimes excite you to pull off a good shot in rough circumstances.

But all that changed when I rolled up on Ed maddox’s place,a Wise county resident for over 50 years. I immediately locked on to this old building that Ed had Built whe he first started his bee hobby, several years ago.Now I had a cool old background,open shade in front,and a character to match,I was excited again, there was a challange.

By creating a sense of place you put as much emphasis on the background as you do the subject,just in a different way.To make ol’ Ed stand out from his enviroment,I used one flash to camera left, on a rope, no diffusion, so as to make the hard time on Ed stick out. This can be a very fast way to work, and still get good results.

Set up Background to be about a stop and half less than the main, being old school, set camera on manual, left the flash on TTL-1 and let it rip. Post in lightroom.