Lighting advice for photoshoot

[mph999]

Hi all,

Hoping someone can give me a few pointers regarding lighting setups.

I'm doing a TFP shoot on Sunday with two models, I've ok with bog standard portrait shots, some I've taken previously are here ..

http://www.allaboutlight.co.uk/

However, I'm looking to get a bit more creative and am fully intending to just try things and see, however, I would really appreciate it if anyone could give me a few hints/ tips or point me in the direction of any websites I could read up on.

The kit I have avaiable is ...

Black background
x3 studio flash heads (200Ws)
x1 snoot with honeycombe grid
sb600 and sb800 flash
x1 softbox
x1 shoot through and x1 reflective umbrella
x2 multi colour reflectors

For example, one idea I had was to use only the snoot & honeycombe to emulate a low sun

Many thanks,

Martin

Edited by mph999 on Saturday 11th September 01:48

[andy-xr]

Hey Martin

I've just had a look through your website. Not sure whether you were looking for thoughts on your existing work or not. If not, please let me know and I'll remove the following...

You appear to go low key quite often, and with fairly harsh shadows - you could fill much more on these and light your subjects more sympathetically



You also appear to be underexposing on more normal shots. I'm not sure whether this is screen calibration/PP or thats what happened in camera, but I think it's about a stop under where it could be and lacking a bit of contrast







Lets assume standard portraiture, how about this

1) The umbrellas will throw light everywhere. Try using them as bounced fill on axis, a stop to a stop and a half under your key
2) Key light with your softbox left or right (you'll need to work out their best angles), dont bother with the black background, just find something else to shoot against. Use the background fabric on the reflectors (I'm assuming it's fabric) as a flag for the softbox, so you put light exactly where you want it.
3) Snoot as hairlight on the short side, white reflector on the other side. If you dont have a white reflector, Wickes sell polystyrene insulation board in 3ft x 2ft sections and they cost £2.99

What that setup should give you is fairly precise control over light, the ability to shape it and fill without harsh shadows. Course, if you want really harsh shadows and think I'm talking ste, carry on

I tend to use lighting diagrams sparingly, on the basis that they work for you to help remember WTF you did rather than to give to other people to copy. Having said that there's a diagram here that I posted on TP. It's really simple stuff but might be one to try. The idea was to have the key over to the side, make sure it didnt interfer with the backdrop too much and fill from the side. I mistakenly left the Octa on, the smaller softbox is doing most of the fill





The resulting image is NSFW so I've linked it here if you want to see it


A trick someone showed me was to gobo and bounce the light. We cut shapes from an 8x4 polyboard and put a softbox in behind it. We also gelled certain sections and bounced the whole thing into a blue wall

I took the gels off for this shot but its the same principle

[mph999]

andy-xr said:

Hey Martin

I've just had a look through your website. Not sure whether you were looking for thoughts on your existing work or not. If not, please let me know and I'll remove the following...

You appear to go low key quite often, and with fairly harsh shadows - you could fill much more on these and light your subjects more sympathetically



You also appear to be underexposing on more normal shots. I'm not sure whether this is screen calibration/PP or thats what happened in camera, but I think it's about a stop under where it could be and lacking a bit of contrast

Edited to add, nice pictures ...







Lets assume standard portraiture, how about this

1) The umbrellas will throw light everywhere. Try using them as bounced fill on axis, a stop to a stop and a half under your key
2) Key light with your softbox left or right (you'll need to work out their best angles), dont bother with the black background, just find something else to shoot against. Use the background fabric on the reflectors (I'm assuming it's fabric) as a flag for the softbox, so you put light exactly where you want it.
3) Snoot as hairlight on the short side, white reflector on the other side. If you dont have a white reflector, Wickes sell polystyrene insulation board in 3ft x 2ft sections and they cost £2.99

What that setup should give you is fairly precise control over light, the ability to shape it and fill without harsh shadows. Course, if you want really harsh shadows and think I'm talking ste, carry on

I tend to use lighting diagrams sparingly, on the basis that they work for you to help remember WTF you did rather than to give to other people to copy. Having said that there's a diagram here that I posted on TP. It's really simple stuff but might be one to try. The idea was to have the key over to the side, make sure it didnt interfer with the backdrop too much and fill from the side. I mistakenly left the Octa on, the smaller softbox is doing most of the fill





The resulting image is NSFW so I've linked it here if you want to see it


A trick someone showed me was to gobo and bounce the light. We cut shapes from an 8x4 polyboard and put a softbox in behind it. We also gelled certain sections and bounced the whole thing into a blue wall

I took the gels off for this shot but its the same principle

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the taking the time to reply, much appeciated. I shall look at your links.

I do like the low key, shadow look, the picture you showed was actualy 'accidental', one of the lights failed to fire, and I and the model liked the result ... However, I take you point about being more sympathetic.

Many thanks,

Martin

Edited by mph999 on Saturday 11th September 09:56