Sunrise Coffee

What is coffee to you?

For many, is a way to begin a new day: that touch of energy to let the morning go the way it should.

And what's the best way to drink coffee? Well, I guess, sitting on a balcony, sun rising, calm and peaceful.

Well, I wanted to re-create this kind of atmosphere, but that's not easy, when you don't have any balcony, and it's 3pm on a hot middle august day. So... how to do that?

That's were strobes come to help: if used correctly, they can allow you to control the light the way you want.

For this shot, I didn't use any unbelievable instrument: just two strobe lights, a reflective surface, and a coloured gel.

The more important thing was actually to balance lights such that the effect might result in a photo as "natural" as possible.

First of all: the sun-effect. For this, I was putting my 580EX II on camera right, just a bit higher than the subject, and as far as I could, with just a CTO gel on it, to give this yellowish colour one should expect from a sunrise. This eventually gave me these long, rather hard shadows. They really look like natural, don't they?

By only using that light, anyway, I would have had too much contrast between the right and the left side of the subjects, this resulting in either over or under-exposed images.

To comply with this, I was using a silver-reflecting surface just next to the subjects, on the left.

Moreover, I was using a strobe on subject top, shot against a reflective umbrella, to gently fill light all over the scene.

The effect can actually be seen by looking at the very soft shadow below the coffee cup.

White balance was on normal flash light, without gel, such that, by using it, I could get the gentle yellow cast.

Finally, I placed the coffee capsules to fill the frame and help creating a more balanced composition.

The final effect is quite natural, and makes me want to have... one more coffee please!