One of the bigger challenges a photographer would face when shooting with strobes outdoors is competing with the sun. If depending purely on the exposure triangle, we’d have to push our shutter speed up, tighten our aperture, and put our ISO on the lowest settings. If we push our shutter speed up, this forces us to use strobes capable of high speed sync (since normal strobes run from 1/160-250 max shutter). If we tighten our aperture, we’re limited to an overly detailed background (which doesn’t work all the time). And of course, our ISO can only go so low. The problem with HSS is the recycle time—when shooting under the bare sun of the Philippines, time efficiency (especially for the model) is important. If you don’t carry a telephoto lens, subject and background separation isn’t easy at high apertures. If you don’t have that much manpower, holding a scrim/diffusor over your subject isn’t an option.

In order to achieve this kind of exposed photo, I relied on my ND filter. Since the ND filter pushed my camera’s light sensitivity down, I was able to run on maximum shutter speed for normal strobe (1/250 for the Godox AD400pro), keep my aperture at F4.0 (with my Sony 55mm lens), and put my iso at 100. The way ambient light and strobes register in the camera are very different—ambient light primarily relies on time, while strobes rely least on time but a lot on total sensitivity. In this situation, balancing the least amount of ambient light possible to provide a chance for the strobe to register was the challenge. All definitely impossible if it weren’t for an ND filter. The Godox was set one 1/2 power (I’m generally fearful of using full power on any light) on the side, while a silver reflector rested on me while I shot from a low angle. JT held up a large white reflector behind me to help lessen the total shadows created by the 12:00 sun.

The hat was the biggest winner though—it gave me all the shade I needed to shoot without fighting the glaring sun.

Rustan’s 2021 Summer Campaign
Photography by Artu Nepomuceno, assisted by JT Fernandez
Creative Direction by Ricardo Preto
Modeling by Miranda Castelli
Hair by Francis Guintu