Senior Season? Love how natural this feels - what a great smile. The tat on the wrist reveals a little more about her character too. Like it.

Funny how the darkness allowed her to have more fun, even though she came for the sunlight. Senior season can start any time, but it certainly gets to be rush time August & Sept before the October deadline for the yearbook. Then often have sessions again up through the weeks leading up to graduation.

Well Marcus, thanks for the question, it is pretty simple in reality for this shot. I needed to be portable, shoot for over an hour, see and focus in the dark and not be worried about slight breezes that might knock over equipment. So for this shoot I chose my XS OctoDome® nxt. Not effected by slight wind, double-diffused light, small footprint makes it easy to feather off the light down the body as desired just by tilting it up. Also works with video lights, so I knew the modeling light would not effect the fabric. I kept it pretty close to subject, maybe 3' away. Camera was set to rear curtain sync and had to drag the shutter for these evening shots to get the ambient to come in the dark sky. For shots where her body was in the sky/mountains/city lights she had to hold still. 2 seconds for this shot. For shots where only wheat was behind her, she could move freely. The light I used is an Alien Bee B800 set to about 1/8 power with the modeling light on for focusing/setup, off for capture (because I am dragging the shutter). Power supplied by my Explorer XT. Before and after this short series I was shooting with two Alien Bees, but for this shot I only used the one. Triggering provided by PW+II units, but my RadioPopper JrX studio units would work exactly the same. Since the light was in arms reach I did not need the JrX ability to ramp up an down the light values from the hot shoe.

The modeling light worked great for walking around/seeing and focusing. A speedlight would give a similar lighting result, but for me would be problematic here, as we would have to use flashlights a lot and light placement would have been more hit & miss. For me the 'bees just work great when they are suitable for the job. Plus I often find the Alien Bees offer the same or even quicker setup than speedlights with similar equipment. I love both, and mix & match as needs dictate.

Ah; I'd wondered battery people use to make their Alien Bees portable; that's a good reference you have. I also find the Alien Bees are quicker to set up than speedlites a lot of the time. I really love them.

The Vagabond II is the other popular choice for powering 'bees. Friend of mine was looking to buy one recently and found them to be in scarce supply. Don't know if that was temporary or not. Innovatronix claims their 24v system is more efficient, but whatever works is better for that person. A friend of mine runs two AB1600 off his Vagabond II and has never let him down. The only other option I know of is a pure sine wave generator like the Honda units but will set you back nearly $800 and is noisy plus you need messy, smelly fuel.