Sierra Hot Springs Shoot

Jen and I are currently working on an article on Hot Springs of the Sierra.  While most of the story is built around the undeveloped hot springs of the Eastern Sierra we wanted to focus on at least one developed hot spring to give the story more depth. 

Years ago chilled to the bone after a winter ski trip on Yuba Pass.  We found ourselves warming up at the Sierra Hot Springs in Sierra Valley.  After regaining feeling in our fingers and toes I began to see the photo potential of the springs themselves. 

While Sierra Hot Springs has several different soaking pools it was the geodesic dome that really excited me as a possible photo.  So when we were asked to shoot a hot springs story I knew exactly where I wanted to shoot the developed hot spring images. 

We arranged to stay for two nights, and in order to have the place to our selves we did our shooting from 6-7am in the mornings.  Besides the pain of getting up early and being awake enough to be working by 6am the idea went off without a hitch.

When we arrived we found the dome empty, but dark and steamy.  While the interior remained dark the highlights in the skylights were blown out.  The dome had way to much contrast between the pool and the skylights, and overall a cold color temperature was anything but inviting.

After shooting a few test frames I decided the most dramatic way to illustrate the situation was to slightly underexpose the skylights while having the room properly exposed and slightly warmed.  By using warming gels on my flashes I was able to bring out the wonderful patterns in the dome structure.

So while my model Jen relaxed I set up two Nikon SB-800's on stands to the right and left of the camera position and attached CTO gels to each of their dome diffusers (I tried umbrella's, but they showed in the photo).  I then set the white balance on my Nikon D700 to tungsten in order to give a slight blue cast to the skylights.  With the Nikon SU-800 I was able to trigger both flashes in manual mode.

After a few test exposures, adding a gobo to block the flash from hitting the camera, and opening the door to blow out the steam I was set to shoot.  My ISO was set at 800 in order to give me a faster flash recycle time.  My aperture was set at f/11 in order to give me plenty of depth of field and take some of the power from the skylights.  The flashes were set manually in order to give a proper exposure at F/11 ISO 800.  Finally because shutter speed does not effect the flash exposure I varied my shutter speed between 1/20th and 1/100th in order to have a proper exposure in the skylights while giving the overall image a moody feel.

Sounds complicated, but its only a matter of understanding how different temperatures of light can interact to create a truly dramatic image.