For many years now, I've been using alternate sources of light in my photography, most notably flashlights.

It started many years ago while walking down the isles in Costco when I came across one of the first reasonably priced LED flashlights; after asking permission, my wife allowed me to add it to the basket.

I consider this one of my first evolutions in lighting. At first, I just kept the lights in my bag in case I needed it. Finally, one day on a portrait shoot, I pulled it out to see what I could do and was very surprised by the power and how the color temperature was very close to daylight. For the next several years, I continued exploring this style of lighting. Fast forward to today, and it's like we're in the golden age of illumination. LED flashlights are so powerful and inexpensive. They have found a permanent place in my lighting kit. I recently started using flashlights made by a company named "O Light" they have a wide variety of lights on their website. If you're into flashlights, it's worth checking out.

The flashlight I used on this particular day was the Marauder 2. Some of the crazy stats are an 800-meter spotlight beam from the central LED and a 14000-lumen floodlight beam from 12 surrounding LEDs.

An intuitive rotary knob switch to turn on the light and circle through 7 output levels.

It's undoubtedly an impressive light.

For this shoot, I spent the afternoon with my good friend Morgan, she and I have worked together quite a few times, and I always enjoy our sessions together. The goal for the shoot was to walk and find the light. The camera I'm using is a Nikon Z6 II with a sigma 35 mm 1.4 lens. I could talk extensively about how much I love that lens, but I'll save that for another time.

Below are my results in using the flashlight as the main light and the sun as a backlight.

ISO 50 • 1/640 • f 3.5 — ISO 50 • 1/640 • f 3.5

I found the color temperature pleasing, and it only required a little white balance adjustment to bring it back to daylight.

ISO 50 • 1/320 • f 3.5 — ISO 50 • 1/320 • f 3.5

I'm going to test some other flashlights from O Light soon, and I'll be sure and share the results with you all.