I was just raking up the last of the fall leaves and though that I’d like to get some photos of the kids jumping in my big leaf pile.
The image I had in my head was one of those amazing fall days where that gorgeous warm glowing late day sunshine was back-lighting the leaves and highlighting the kids.
To get the photos I wanted, I decided to fake that late day warm sunshine glow with strobe sunlight (click here for a complete how to tutorial).
To create this look, I used an Elinchrom Quadra Strobe with an Impact Luxbanx Small Octagonal Softbox (36″) along with my trusty Nikon D800 with a brand new Sigma 85mm f/1.4 ART lens. The color of light from the strobe was warmed up with a full color temperature orange (CTO) gel to mimic the warm color of actual golden hour sunshine.
When I started shooting it was actually still pretty bright out, and I wanted to shoot wide open at f/1.4 so I used an Elinchrom EL-Skyport Plus HS transmitter. The EL-Skyport Plus HS transmitter along with the Quadra Strobe allowed me to shoot a few stops faster than my camera’s strobe sync speed – allowing me to shoot wide open at f/1.4 with a strobe, even with relatively bright ambient light.
The strobe was set behind my subjects and just out of the frame to the side. This allowed me to use the front of my house as the background – although I did have to move the cars out of the driveway to avoid them cluttering up the frame (even with the awesome bokeh of the Sigma 85mm f/1.4 ART lens the color of the blue car in the driveway didn’t match the feeling I wanted for the images).
The rest was easy – just rake a big pile of fall leaves and get the kids to jump in the leaf pile.

Boy (8) looks happy as autumn leaves fall about him

Boy (8) reaches for the sky as autumn leaves fall on him

Two children having fun playing with fallen leaves in a yard

Two girls having fun playing with fallen leaves in a yard

Two girls having fun playing with fallen leaves in a yard

Girl sitting in the middle of a pile of autumn leaves while more leaves fall on her

Girl sitting peacefully in the middle of a pile of autumn leaves

Girl’s head emerges from a pile of autumn leaves
All images from this session are available for royalty free licensing at Stocksy United.