Every time my eyes hit Jaco Fourie's site or an image he has created, i'm drawn in. This South Africian photographer has one outside the box creative vision and I'm so happy he is willing to share here on FF. Recently, he was involved with a TTD shoot that resulted in some serious fine art. He continues to challenge the creative edge and is delivering some killer stuff. Rangfinder even contacted him and is planning on featuring his business in their February 2009 issue! Congrats Amigo!

Jaco writes:

I had a real blast shooting these images. I like to combine video light with off camera flash. It gives me the ability to be so creative when it comes to lighting up my subjects. The video light is too weak to use in direct sun light. That is where the off camera flash comes in handy.
So why is off camera flash such a big buzz word these days? It has been around like forever. I personally think it is because now we are so portable that we can create stunning images using it very quickly and in places never seen before.
The main aim of off camera flash is to model the light so that the subject in the image becomes more 3D. Well that is the reason I use it. It adds a lot of drama and makes my wedding images a lot more dramatic. If you do it correctly you have so little postproduction on the images. The images are 95% done in camera

I shot this image using only video light from the side. The pier we were under had these blue lights shining down the side and I wanted to use that in the image. Using off camera flash was too powerful and overpowered some of the blue. That is why I decided to use only video light here. The image was shot with the Nikon D3. These cameras are truly amazing. I shot this hand held in the dark. I under exposed this shot by 2 stops so the blue would be prominent. It reminds me of a Star Wars Movie
Exif Info
Iso 5000
1/100
F 5.6

We also shot at this cave like opening. I noticed the wind blowing through it. I am always looking out for spots to use a veil and decided that this would be a cool place to use it. I also wanted to add some drama to the shot, so I added some flash flavor. I had 2 SB-800 speedlights that I fired via Skyports. One pointing at the front of the model and one pointing at the roof of the cave. I under exposed the shot by 2 stops to let the ambient go dark. Remember that your shutter needs to be slower than your camera sync speed to get a proper flash exposure. I played with this image in Photoshop to make it more moody.

Exif Info.
Iso 200
1/160
F 5.6

Thanks for taking the time to submit your killer imagery. I'm very inspired here amigo!

Jaco's blog featuring more TTD's