Studio Lighting Part 5: More for your Money

I like black backgrounds, white backgrounds too. Gray I would have to say is my favorite though. Why? Gray is fantastic with skin tones. No matter the ethnic background, a neutral gray will help to create saturation and classic look. Cool thing is, you don't need to own three different backgrounds. Control your light and you can do a lot of different colors with the same background.

A few gels and a half a stop under exposure turned the background from 50% gray to purple, then blue, and red all in the same shoot. (Though I don't have a good example of the red- not fond of the model). For Yellows and greens and other lighter colors I'd suggest using a white background as a base and underexposing the background more. Plus you need to create a lot of density by using several filters. Use all of the same color for the primary shades or a combination of two different colors for secondary shades. If that's confusing please Google "color wheel" and you'll see how endless the possibilities are. Experimentation is the key to success here, but it's better done on your own time, not your clients.

Gray can also be done on a white background. Just turn off the background lights!  Always light your subject and background separately when trying these techniques and you'll be just fine. Shoot some and post links. I want to see! Don't have a seamless white background?  Try a white bed sheet. If you own accessory flash units you probably own a variety of filers and don't even know it. My Nikon Speedlights came with a bunch all designed to fit into a specially designed holder that came with the SB-900. Very handy little guys.

Tomorrow: Looking for a beginners list of what you should buy for a home studio? Well tomorrow's your lucky day...

Studio Lighting: Part 4

Black backgrounds are exactly opposite of white background when it comes to technique. Instead of lighting the background for a 1-2 stop over exposure, the point is under exposure.  The key lighting is the same, but fill is often needed as well as a hair and rim light to separate the subject from the background. By keeping all light from directly or indirectly hitting the background you'll get an even background. If you want gradation, a flash unit on a low power can do the trick. Here's a couple more examples of some of this season's high school seniors all shot on a black background.

 

Studio Lighting: Part 3- Shooting on a white background

 

The key to photographing on a white background is simple, over expose the background while avoiding lens flair, and exposing your subject correctly. Sounds easy yes? Well there are a hundred and one ways to do it and depending on your subject matter the techniques change. I'm going to focus on portraiture since that's what I do, but below are some links to tutorials that discuss how to work with a white background when shooting products, on location, etc. For the family portrait above the set up is simple. Key light is at camera right with two background lights pointing directly on the background.  Exposure is 1/200 @F13 ISO 200. The background lights are parallel from each other. This keeps the background evenly lit so there is no shadow or gradation of tone where the light would fall off. There was no need for any other fill lighting since the white background actually does a great job of acting as it's own fill card.

 For the next image Terice is modeling (She loves to have her photo taken which is good because I'm always using her as a stand in!) The set up here is your classic three light pattern: Key at camera left (and about 20 degrees from me for a broad light across the face), background light directly behind her, and rim light for the hair and a little fill. Oh and Terice (since I know you're reading this) that was a great hair day for you. Exposure for this image is 1/250 @F7.1 ISO 200. The thing I like best is the rim light on her neck and jaw. I love it when my shadows are delicate and the light is playful. It makes people look great and in turn they think I'm some sort of magician. 

Later this month I'm photographing a huge family group. There are two many of them to shoot all together so instead I'll be shooting them on a white background individually and then creating a panorama in photoshop. The white background makes it easy to combine (no long hours required) and shooting the people individually makes for great smiles on everyone instead of a group photo that is so-so. Don't worry I'll blog about that with details of the shoot and post processing. For now you'll have to spend your time pouring over these other blogs and become a master at the trendy/timeless look of the seamless white background.

http://www.photoanswers.co.uk/Video-Tutorials/Search-Results/Camera-Techniques/Studio-style-portraits-for-under-a-fiver/

http://digital-photography-school.com/whiteseamlesshowt  

http://reviews.ebay.com/Photographing-products-with-a-pure-white-background_W0QQugidZ10000000001921152

http://www.photoaxe.com/how-to-photograph-white-object-on-white-background/

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http://www.gregrphoto.com/blog/2007/01/14/shooting-with-a-white-background/comment-page-1/

http://www.zarias.com/?p=71

Studio Lighting Basics: Part 2 Using a fill light.

If you did your homework yesterday and studied the vocabulary words I gave you, then you are ready to talk about using fill. There are a lot of different methods for adding fill light. The easiest is using a fill card or reflector. I have white foam core (the kind used for mounting prints) in a couple of sizes that I use for fill cards. I also have a collapsible 4-in-1 reflector that I take everywhere. The reflector is far more portable then the foam core but both are often needed when trying to use one light head to create two sources of light.                 

Our first picture (top left) is with a single light head placed at 45 degrees from the subject (my husband) and me on camera left. You can see how the contrast between the highlights and shadows is pretty dramatic and a good portion of the face is quite dark.  On the second image I added a white fill card. Notice how the shadow side is now about a  half stop lighter? The lighting ratio has gone from 4:1 to 3:1. Most traditional portraits are either a 2:1 ratio since it allows for some shadow but there is still detail. (See earlier posts for more info on this subject.) The fill card is positioned at 90 degrees from Caleb. Next the white fill card is replaced by a silver reflector. The quality of light on the shadow side has changed. The silver reflector is brighter then the white fill card. Now we're up to a 2:1 ratio. Finally I flipped the reflector over to the gold side. The intensity of the light is about the same as the silver side, but the color shift is the most obvious change.

Keep in mind a reflector does just that, it only can bounce light already available in a new direction. If you want a greater intensity or light from an angle not directly proportional to your main light you'll need to use flash as your fill. On the next image (right) you can see the fill light on camera left bringing up the shadow side of his face to be as bright as the main light, maybe even a little brighter. Because the fill is positioned slightly behind the subject instead of next to him like a reflector might be, a small sliver of shadow is created along his temple and cheek bone. This kind of lighting style really adds three dimensionality to the image. The key light is diffused where the fill is not, and because of the angle, the fill light has become very textural.                           

Can you guess how old this kid is? Would you believe me if I said 3? It's true, the posing and lighting make him look older then his age and I did this intentionally. I had plenty of photos of him being goofy like all little boys are, what I wanted next was something that spoke to a different emotion.  Unlike shooting on location where you have a sense of place to help tell a story, in the studio you have only the light and your subject. Light is your only tool to create a fresh perspective.  That challenge alone is what keeps my job new and interesting.

Before anyone asks, about how I got the white background to be clean and even I'll admit that I did something I don't normally do, I used the fill light as both a background and fill light simultaneously. Most of the time I use a light for the background separately since I want to be able to control each layer of the scene, but I was able to get away with this for a few simple reasons.                 

  The background I used was only 5' wide and my subject is standing pretty close to it. Normally I try to put distance between the subject and the background so no shadows fall on the vertical plain, but I didn't need to worry about this because the fill light was positioned in such a way that it's light illuminated both the side of the subject and the background. The fill light was powered to full and with it's close proximity to the background it was far more intense then the main light which was only at half power. This is what caused the background to loose all detail since the camera's exposure was set to match the main light's setting. (1/320 @ F6.3 with ISO 200) In simpler terms, I over exposed the background.

Next up we will talk more in detail about shooting on a white background and the traditional three light setup that has defined studio portraiture.

Studio Lighting Basics: Part 1 "Feel the Light"

In college one of my more ego maniacal  instructors (keep in mind they ALL fit into this category) brought in a single light head on a stand with a soft-box to class. He had the entire group stand with arms out in front of it repeating "I feel the light!" as if we were impersonating a gospel choir. His point? At a certain level you need to act instinctively about how you use light. Studio photography is the best example since you have complete control over every light source and direction. So I want to take the next few days and go over some of the basics about how to light in a studio and why the classics work so well. Then I want to talk about breaking out of the box and doing things differently. That's where the whole "Feeling the Light" really matters. So please to anyone reading, take what you see here, and apply these techniques creatively; by all means make it your own! That's what art is all about, yes? I'll provide the method you're responsible for the mood.

First thing first, think of light as your most basic tool. Keep in mind how changing light alters the emotion of an image and where it's placed is the key to telling a subject's story. And everything has a story. How interesting it is, well, that's up to you.

So let's start with some lingo.

Key (or main) Light: Just what it sounds like. This is normally the brightest light in the set up. Often times it's that big glowing ball in the sky.

Fill Light: This is the light, or sometimes a reflector that fills in the shadows to help reduce contrast or illiminate shadows all together.

Background Light: The light that illumniates the background.

Hair Light or Rim Light: A light positioned behind the subject and sometimes what helps to separate the subject and background from one another.

Monolight: Flash unit that is self contained and uses AC power.

Lens Flair: Light that is reflected back into the camera lens. Not fun to try to remove in post processing.

Lighting ratio: A mathematical way of describing how bright the main light is compared to the fill light.

Wireless Remote: Sounds redundant I know, but these little guys, AKA radio transmitters, signal flash units from the camera so all units fire simultaneously.

Diffuser: A device used to disperse light and soften shadows. A few popular ones are: softboxes, unbrellas (reflective and translucent) a beauty dish and diffusion sock, etc.

Specular Highlight: A bright spot of light that appears in shiny objects. Often called catch lights when observed in portraits, this is the glow you see in people's eyes. It is also the easiest way to determine how a photograph was lit. I simply look for the reflection in the subject's eyes to tell me how to recreate the same shot.

Reflector: A surface that reflects light. (Obvious I know) They come in many varieties. Gold and silver reflectors add either a warm or cool tone to an image where white stays color neutral. The bigger the reflector, the more diffused the light. The closer the reflector is to the light source the greater the intensity of the reflected light. 

Okay let's start off small. Let's talk about lighting with just a key light and go from there.

All you Anne Geddes fans here's a knock off for you. This image used a single key light and my husband draped in black fabric. I know what you're thinking, and no he won't wax his arms for a re-shoot. This kind of image is very popular (can't quite figure out why) and easy to do. My key light was a single unit pointed towards the ceiling at a 45 degree angle to give it some direction and its positioned a little bit off of camera right. By pointing the light up it filled the whole room and broadly lit both baby and my toga wearing husband. ( I should have gotten a photo of him to show you. Especially since the whole thing was held on by a few "A" clamps in the back. Pretty hilarious actually.) Here's a diagram to help illustrate. I used an umbrella since it was already on the light-stand and any extra diffusion is okay with me, but the ceiling is really what did the work. As I said before, the larger the area light can reflect off of, the more dispersed it will be. Nine foot ceilings painted white are a portrait photographer's best friend when on location. Luckily for me the same trick works in my studio as well.

One thing I do need to mention here is that this lighting method (sometimes referred to as a broad lighting pattern) means that in the original image there was a good amount of detail visible in the black material around Caleb's body. There are two ways to correct this:

1. GOBO the light. This stands for "GOes Before Optics" and is basically anything that is dark that will be put in front of a light source to change how it looks. Black matt board is a cheep and easy solution. Hang a few of these from light stands or have an assistant hold them in place so as to remove light that was falling on spots it shouldn't be.
2. Use the Dodge and Burn tool in Photoshop. 

I'll admit I chose option two since it was more convenient at the time, but GOBO's are  especially useful and something no photographer should be without. The best part is how creative you can get with one. Anything can be a GOBO. Just as long as it casts a shadow. Scrims are similar to GOBO's but they are translucent and they are used more as a diffuser then a light blocker. I have a 7' by 10' collapsible scrim but I've seen other photographers use white sheets, shower curtains, etc.

One thing you have be careful of when using one light source is separation. Does the shadow areas on your subject blend into the background? This mistake is most commonly made when the subject has dark hair and the background is black or they have on dark clothing. It creates what I like to call FHS or Floating Head Syndrome. Again this reinforces the point I made earlier, you must "Feel the Light" and that means controlling it! When one light won't do, you add another, or a reflector, until you've correctly lit your subject in a way that is pleasing and distinguishable.
Tomorrow we'll expand on this same idea and move up to two lights sources.