Busted

I haven’t updated mostly just because my latest assignments haven’t been very eventful. I’ve been getting a lot of the same stuff (soccer, football, festivals, etc).

This post may seem a bit redundant from the previous post since I talked about shooting portraits of people, but I want to really make a point about something that most beginners, myself included, don’t seem to get through their heads.

Your equipment isn’t truly what makes you take amazing photographs. I understand that having a higher resolution camera, an extra flash, some nice expensive light stands, blah, blah, blah can do amazing things to change your shooting, but that’s not “IT”.

The pictures in this post were all taken with one to two flashes. The second flash isn’t extremely necessary. You could even change locations to a spot near a window for a “free light”. Then, using your one flash as a fill light, create the same affect as a two flash set up.

My setup shot is just to give an idea of the minimal equipment that I’m using. Most portraits should be simple so that you keep the person in the picture as the actual subject.

Lighting is easy and fun, experiment with things that will be lit like a person (like this sculpture I did last year) and just keep moving lights around to see what happens.

Oh, and my backgrounds were basic. One was a blanket stretched over a wide chair back. The other was a painting canvas, unpainted.

First Image:
This was with one flash, shooting through the white umbrella above. Blue blanket background behind it which was fleece so it ate light. Since I shot at a higher shutter speed, the ambient (light from the room) didn't get picked up by the camera.

This is pretty dramatic, but still enough light. Note the eye showing on the right side. That's important. A total profile with no visible features on the side of the face opposite the light looks strange. Unless you're going for that really moody shot.


Second Image:
This isn't much different from the last one except that I used what's called a "reflector" to reflect (shocking, I know) light from the umbrella onto the other side of the face. This lightens the shadows just a bit, while keeping the background dark. Still one light, but now two with the reflector. By the way, reflector was the canvas board. Costly? No.






Third Image:
Now comes the second light. Notice how it makes the head pop from the background. That light on the hair is called... hair light (not exactly Latin).

Reflector was still used on the right side.









Fourth Image:
Ok, change of lighting. This is two lights. First, yet again shot through white umbrella on the left. Second light is behind and below the subject, firing up at the background to throw a faint halo on the wall/blanket.

This is old-school light. My grandfather used to use this in the studio that he owned way back. Were he not retired, he'd still be doing it. My point? Classics never die. Unless they're drummers in Spinal Tap.



Fifth Image: (Almost done I promise)
This is no different from the above, except that there's a background change. I had to adjust the metering since the white background reflects (gasp! a photo product int he shot) light more efficiently than the blanket.

The halo is more noticeable. Apparently white backgrounds are all the rage as of late. People are going nuts with having blown out white backgrounds.




Sixth Image:
Ok, this one is just for fun. My model got all high and mighty on me and started acting all "Paris Hilton".

Thus ends the small studio set ups. I'm definitely not the leading expert on this stuff. You can make a visit to studiolighting.net for a really good site on what else but stuido lighting.