Fire

This is my first attempt photographing a model with fire. Please comment.

#1

If somebody has some experience photographing people with fire, I have a question:
In order for me to get a person and the fire, I have to use a flash and a long (0.4 - 0.6 exposure) with the flash set to the second curtain.
Even with these settings, as u can see in the first picture, her chest is overexposed because of the fire. Also, her face isn't lit evenly and I understand that fire creates the additional source of light and hence shadows.
I've tried shorter exposures, but then my flash overpowers the fire ball.
Any advice from the pros?

Think about it like this: the fire is a bare bulb very close to the model. So you have this light, very close to her, and also shining straight into the camera. The direct light is always going to be the brightest thing in the shot. But because the fire is so close to her, it falls off very quickly. If her chest is 6 inches from the fire, and her face is 12 inches away, then her face is already a stop down.

I can think of a few solutions, none very attractive. If you can get the fire farther away, you'll get more even lighting on the model (but then the flame will be much brighter than everything else). Another approach would be to use selective lighting: stick a snoot or grid on your flash so it only hits her face, and let the fire light her body. Or you could gobo the fire on the side facing her (in the first shot) so it doesn't light her so much--of course, it would still blow out your sensor on the direct part. If you shot B&W, I suppose you could use colored fire and filter out that color; then your daylight-balanced flash would still come through.

Maybe the best bet would be to put the flash relatively far away and set its power so that it's a stop or maybe just half a stop below what the fire produces on her skin. Then as the fire fell off, the flash would become dominant. You'd have to play around a lot to find the balance. Definitely set the flash on manual; using ETTL in this situation is a recipe for failure.

I take it, from photo #2 and your second post about long shutter speeds, that you're using a pretty dim fire. Depending on the effect you want, you might try something a bit brighter.

The bottom line, though, is that it's a tough situation.

Use a smaller fire. Maybe try a candle.

Good luck.