25. Valley Forge

I have so many other pictures that were taken before this image that I should be using for my 52 project this week… But I can’t help it I love this image.  I took this image yesterday Aug. 14th 2010 in Valley Forge PA.  I went there with a friend and we wandered around the Valley Forge National Historical Park having a photography workshop of sorts between the two of us.  Once the sun began to set I knew that I had to take advantage of the beautiful colors and light.  So we strolled down the Muhlenberg Brigade which has replica huts where Gen. Peter Muhlenberg’s brigade stayed to anchor the outer line of defense.. and I saw this photo opportunity.

I had taken a few pictures of these huts on my way past them the first time but of coarse the sunset wasn’t there to pull the shot together.. duh..  This time through the sunset was there but the problem was that the hut was completely dark due to the sun setting on the other side of it..duh..  In order for me to preserve the beautiful sunset it became necessary for me to use some off camera flashes to illuminate the hut.  I will do a blog post showing the different versions before/after flash as well as some other images from Valley Forge in the near future.  I had my friend stand off camera left directly in front of the hut with a flash held up high and I also put a flash down on the ground off camera right to illuminate the side of the hut just a little bit.  Then I got down in the grass and snapped a couple of pictures.  It didn’t take that much time to nail the flash settings and achieve the look that I was going for.  The most important thing was to lower the exposure enough in the camera to capture the colors of the sunset.  Once I had my camera set to capture that it was just a matter of adding just enough flash fill light to make the hut pop out.

So that’s how this image was created.  Enjoy!