Light, and its importance.

Light is all important to photography.

Good light will almost always lead to a good photograph. If you have the eye for composition and the knowledge of the manual settings.

If you don’t have good light, you better hope your camera performs like a champ in high ISOs.

But even shooting with a high ISO and in RAW sometimes you just can’t recover from bad lighting.

This show was using a new lighting scheme. And while very dramatic for the live audience, it was murder for me. There was only one set of clean lights over the entrance ramp. Everything else had blue or red gels over them. Not only does that cast a crazy color bleed but it also makes it 3-4 stops darker than it needed to be.

Every shot in this post was taken on the left side of the ring, where the clean lights were located. Anything that was in the middle of the ring or on the right side was just throw away. Even at high ISOs you have to have some light to prevent the grainy noise.

An off camera flash could have saved a lot of the shots of course, but in a packed house in a tiny venue and you aren’t sure where the wrestlers are going to be next, you can’t exactly set up a giant soft box. Besides, with it being so dark, a flash might have done some damage to the performers.

Even so. A couple of the pictures turned out to be not so very bad.

Below is my favorite shot from the night.

Even though it’s not compositionally “correct.” Even though there was little to no light. Even though it’s of his back.

I love the light. And that you can just make out his outline against the black curtains. He looks tough and mean and that he could break you like a walnut. Oorah.

NWA Action, the resulting head shots.

It only took about 90 minutes of editing, the lighting was just what I had hoped for. And the wrestlers were all hams for the camera.

Here are my some of my favorites from the backstage shoot.

Given the restrictions present, I was really pleased with the outcome. We are in the works of scheduling a day for all of the guys to get a full promotional set. In a location that will have plenty of room to spread out.

Turns out, within hours of posting these to their Facebook fan pages, some of the wrestlers received bookings based on the pictures I took. There is nothing like gratification. Fingers crossed this means we will have a long standing and awesome relationship.

PS Are you a booking agent and want one of these guys to appear at your event? Look them up here: NWA Action

PSS Are you an agent looking for affordable head shots and promo packages for your clients? Head over here: Maintaining Sanity Photography.