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.

Photographing Infants: Part 2

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for, photos of my son!

In this photo Alexander is three days old and like a good baby model, sound asleep. I wanted to achieve the look of natural light with soft shadows and a slight directional quality as if the light was screaming in the window. Then I remembered I live in Western Washington and light here can be hard to find on a rainy day. I found myself with two choices, either shoot with the natural light and a high ISO or try flash. Before anyone skips to the bottom of the page and begins commenting on how mean it is to startle infants with a strobe, let me tell you how you can do the same without causing any trouble for yourself and your subject. The name of the game here is bounce.

To start I placed a pop-up reflector card by my front window and then positioned the SB-900 on it's floor stand (included in the box) about half a foot away from the reflector and pointing directly at it. I also positioned another reflector by Alex's head and 180 degrees from the flash and reflector combo in the window. To test the flash I placed a stand in for Alex in the basket and checked the lighting was what I wanted. Then while holding my son I tested the flash at half power and watched him to make sure he wouldn't jump in my arms.  When it flashed Alex didn't even move a muscle because it was several feet from him and being redirected by the reflector cards.  Completely ready I took off his clothes, fed him, and then once he was fast asleep, placed him in he basket. For me getting babies into the right position is always the hardest part. Key things to remember though: make them look comfortable, (unless you're going for that Anne Geddes I'm a super bendable infant thing) try to find angles that flatter them just as you would adults, and work fast once your shot is set up. With a naked infant there are a number of things that can go horribly wrong in a matter of seconds. I'm sure you can guess what those are so I won't elaborate.

The shots used in this blog post were all shot at the same exposure 1/20 @ f4.5. I wanted the background visible but not distracting. And as usual I enjoy shooting with wider angle lenses close up. The first image above was shot at 16mm so I could include the entire basket and some of the floor. The next image (left) was at 35mm and still has some of the wide angle feel but it's closer to normal (50mm) so there is just a little distortion. (Or in layman's terms- the reason why this baby looks to have a giant head.) Plus with the f4.5 you can see that the image is sharp from his hair to fingers. Note: it's always good to remember that the depth of field provides sharpness forwards and backwards from your focal point. So because I was focused on Alex's eyes, his hands and hair also fell within that range while letting the background and the rest of his body past the shoulder fall off in sharpness and blur together.

The next image has the same exposure, nearly the same focal length (40mm), but the angle is different. I moved about a foot to the right to become more parallel with the baby and by doing so I changed ever so slightly the focal range and perspective. The third image (right) shows his head in better proportion to his body and while I like the angle of the second image I think it's important to note how different they look and how minor the adjustments between each image create varied results.

In case your wondering set up for these photos took about a half an hour and I shot nearly 20 frames during the next 10 minutes. At that point Alex was tired of me pushing his legs back into the right place in between shots and began to fuss. Being his mom and knowing we were going to do another photo shoot the following day, we ended our photo session. If the baby had been a client's child we would have moved on to another pose after the baby had some time to settle down. On average this can be a few minutes to a half an hour in some cases.

The Alexander photos continue tomorrow with some tutorials about how to make better black and white images.

For more information about infant portrait session with Irene Jones Photography please visit our website, Irene Jones Photography Online.

How to Photograph Infants

On November 7th we welcomed our newest edition to our family. What a better time then the present to discuss how to photograph babies. For the next few days I'll be discussing this topic and sharing lots of photos of my newborn with you. Now originally when I started this blog I committed myself to only one image a day. The idea was that it would make me focus on a particular topic and keep each post from wandering aimlessly. I've decided after a little over a week of blogging that the more images I use the better, so from now on you can expect more images when the need arises. I'll do my best to keep on topic and avoid long boring blog posts that do nothing more then stroke my ego. Now onto baby!

Alex weighed eight pounds and measured 20 inches long when he was born. The day of the birth no photos were take because as a rule my husband and I have decided that when it comes to personal family moments no cameras are allowed. We have done this because we hate experiencing birthday parties, Christmas and other important times with a camera in hand. We want to be a part of the action and not always the one documenting it. So with video camera put away and my Nikon D-300 at home, we spent Saturday evening with our new little boy and the quiet joy that new life brings.

Come Sunday morning, all bets were off. Caleb arrived with my camera and Alex had his first photo shoot. Here are a few of my favorites.

All of the images in this post were done at the hospital. I brought with me some new blue blankets from home and we wrapped him in them and covered the cushion in his bed with one also. My photo equipment had to be simple since it was a hospital and not a photo studio after all. So natural light and a pop up reflector to the rescue! My hospital room had a very large window on the north face (score!) so where to shoot was a no brainer. The best spot for the reflectorw as directly opposite the window so as much light as possible would be bounced back on the shadow side thus bring up the exposure and minimizing the contrast. The lighting you see in the photo has a 2:1 ratio. What is a lighting ratio you ask? Simply put it's the difference in the exposure across the scene (or most commonly the person's face). On the left of Alex's face you see the highlight from the window This exposure is about 1 stop brighter then the right side of his face. The ratio is just a technical short hand for explaining the difference.  There are also some advantages of photographing newborns under these conditions in addition to easy set up and beautifully diffused light..

1. Newborns are mainly photographed asleep simply because that's what they do best. Natural light is even and steady so it won't disrupt the slumber of a tired baby. Flash on the other hand will make your baby tense up, all of their reflexes fire simultaneously and they might even start to cry: ending your photo session. There are ways to use flash (I'll talk about this tomorrow) but pointing directly at your subject or even close to them is out of the question.
2. Controlling contrast is also an issue. Mentally our perception of babies conjures up images of  fluffy blankets, pastel colors, and all things adorable. In photography this translates to a need for soft shadows, slightly directional lighting (since texture is important to show detail) and a low level of contrast. Highlight and shadow detail are important so watch your exposures carefully!
3. Finally depth of field is a major factor in infant portraiture. The dreamy quality that shallow depth of field evokes helps to sustain our notions about all things cuddly in relationship to babies as well as draw the viewer eye to the face of our new sleeping baby. The blankets become blurs of color (used only to suggest gender and warmth) and enhance instead of distract from the focal point: his sleepy eyes.
   

Now working with natural light can be completely opposite of working with flash. Instead of setting the light from the flash to match the exposure and ISO you want, you set the ISO and adjust the exposure to match the light you have. In the case of this image I used 400 ISO and chose to shoot at f3.2. I wanted limited depth of field but it was important that most of his face was in focus. The shutter speed was 1/50 of a second. I was hand holding for all of these images and the vibration reduction in my lens came in handy since I tend to shake at mid and low range shutter speeds. I also used the exposure compensation at +1/3 stop since the internal meter on most Nikon's tend to underexpose or go to the dark side as I like to say.

For this next photo instead of focusing on his face I chose the hospital bracelet. For me the slight change in focal point also changes the image from a standard portrait into an editorial piece and often it is that simple difference that can make or break an image. I would love your opinion, so please comment and come back tomorrow for a gallery of naked baby photos!

Irene Jones Photography offers studio and location portrait sessions for infants, children and families. Please visit Irene Jones Photography Online to view our portfolio and session pricing.

Part 2 of Photographing Infants tomorrow.