Well, my Volleyball client needed a new ad. That’s great. We needed it to be concepted, shot, and produced in one day. A day that had me doing other things as well. Stressful? A little, but I have been at this game long enough to know that it will get done. It always does.

Concept was easy. The software they design for Volleyball coaches currently runs on Palms and handheld devices. A lot of coaches are wanting it to run on a laptop as they are starting to carry laptops to the games for other things and it would be nice to only have one device courtside. Announcing the availability of a PC based software for laptops is the overall message of the ad. It wasn’t meant to overshadow the total message of the two available software packages, but to let those who are currently using the older software that a new tool was now ready.

We always strive to be a little different. Most of the ads that are in the trades are either big time products like Adidas and Nike or small, mom and pop solutions for a niche of court volleyball. I want my ads to look as good as they can and also stand out. Shots of volleyball players taken under less than ideal lighting abounds. We have been going for the still life approach since we started working together in 2002. The ads stand out. They get noticed and the client gets inquiries and sales. Score!

This ad will be running in several trades, but the first deadline was “Volleyball Magazine” for the August edition, I believe. Court Volleyball closely follows the school schedules. The printing is pretty good in that magazine so I can push the gamma a little.

Before we dissect the shot, I want to remind you all of the Missoula, El Paso and Memphis workshops. We still have a few openings and it would be nice to have you there. We are doing a special 1 day intensive workshop on the NIKON CLS system with John Groseclose in August. It will involve studio and location work with single and multiple Nikon strobes. Both manual and iTTL will be covered. Look for more information soon.

Here are a few related articles you may enjoy after reading this post:
Adding some Texture to an image.
Another shot with post production for the same client.
Finding the right mix for blending ambient and strobe.
Shooting Food on Location

Thanks for visiting and tell your friends about the site. And now for the soup-to-nuts shoot of this ad.

Gathering the Props.

After the client and I spoke about the shot, I designed a quick sketch and then headed out the door to get the props. First stop was Home Depot for a pair of shelves to use as a background. They were out of the size I needed (?) so I decided to use the pair I had at the studio. They were in pretty good shape, and I could fix any small problems in post. I needed only a small amount of surface for the foreground, so finding a clean spot should be OK.

Then off to Sports Authority for the Volleyball props. Very important to make sure that they are for court volleyball, not sand or beach volleyball. Different ball, different accessories. And very important for the client’s message. The software is for court volleyball and it is targeted to court volleyball coaches that would see the problems instantly.

I have done a few shots for these guys before and I know what they want. A closeup shot with places for a headline and type. We don’t want to look like all the other folks in the Volleyball magazines. We like a more detailed and idiomatic approach.

The final piece was the laptop. The point of this ad is that the software is now running on laptop computers. Previous versions are for Palm and handheld devices. We needed the laptop to be very visible, so I decided to use my rather new Toshiba and cleaned it up nicely.

Setting the props initially.

The angles had to drive the viewer to the center of the shot to the “Power of Two” and to let the laptop and volleyball be important items for the composition. I like angles. I like convergences.

I placed the items to focus the eyes and then started placing the additional items all pointing toward the back of the image and the volleyball. I am not placing for perfection here, I just want to get an idea of what the things will do when being next to each other.

Setting the Light.

Bringing in the main light is next. I haven’t fully set up the shot yet. I wait until the light is in the position I want before finishing the design.

A strip light with a Norman head at 400WS is set at a slight angle toward camera and slightly behind the set. I needed the surface of the light to be visible in the laptop top… providing a definite liquid specular and shape to the laptop and the water bottle. Using a boom gives me much more flexibility for the set. NOTE: get a boom. Get two of them actually.

I placed the light in the center horizontally, and then looked carefully at the way the light fell on and was reflected by the laptop and volleyball. I made a few changes to the setup and then started to make angles for the shot with a handheld camera. I was using a 20MM lens for its view and convergence.

Using a camera stand or tripod.

After determining the angle of the shot that made the most sense to me, I got my camera stand in position. I like using a camera stand in the studio versus a tripod. I trip over tripod legs and that will kill the shot I had worked so hard to position. I still trip over camera stands, but with a camera stand it kills the toes and leaves the camera in position. Priorities.

I also love the little tray for keeping all the stuff I use to shoot with on the platform right next to me. When I am shooting tethered I can attach a laptop to it as well. This time I am not shooting tethered because the laptop I am shooting is the one I usually shoot into. I could have moved one of the Macs over, but time was a consideration.

Lighting Position

You can see the camera stand and the light as they relate to each other in this shot. Note the angle of the light and how far back on the set it actually is. I like using a strip light for these kinds of shots as it has a wonderful fast fall off behind the set.

I keep my power pack in a close proximity and the cords are out of the way. The cleaner you keep the floor around the set, the better it is for the shoot. Having to move stuff around all the time while trying to concentrate on the shot becomes a distraction. Keep the floor area clean. Keep the cords out of the way and tape them to the floor if there is going to be traffic in the area.

The initial shot.

This is the shot I got when I got the camera into position. There are many challenges that need to be met on this initial exposure. The contrast is too great, and the shadows are too deep. The ball is too dark and there is no reflection on the front of the computer so it completely dies. There is a loss of any kind of definition on the side of the water bottle.

This is not unexpected on the initial shot. In film days this would be Polaroid one. In digital it is sort of a sketching thing.

Adding Fill and Reflective Cards.

I added two white pieces of fome core on both sides of the set. These cards are not set randomly, but rather they are angled to provide fill AND reflection. The reflection is the priority as there will be naturally some fill there as well. I needed to get something down the side of the water bottle, and on the front of the computer.

Having a couple of stands or small booms to clamp your cards on is important. You don’t want them to twist away after working a reflection angle for a half hour.

The Set Shot From Behind.

Here is the set from behind showing the ball and the holder that kept it in place. You can also see how the cards are in close to the camera as well as the way the light is angled toward the camera.

On the left on this shot is the edge of a grid spot aimed at the edge of the set. This is giving me a little texture on the knee pads and a slight glow on the side of the ball. A little splashed behind the ball and that added a little bit of cool back light.

I also liked the way the light spilled a bit over onto the front of the set, giving some dimension to a dull part of the image. This little part really added something to the shot.

The Effect of the Fill Cards.

There is a huge difference in the shot now. The cards are doing their jobs adding speculars on the front of the computer as well as the cord and the whistle side. This little bit of light adds some touches that makes the shot live a little. At this point I have decided to shoot this image.

You can see the dramatic difference in the images as we added the reflective cards. I keep all kinds of sizes on hand. Fome core and white boards as well as silver sided and gold sided shiny boards. Even little scraps of boards are kept to use as fill for tiny objects.

Adjustment to the shot and Photoshop Notes

After deciding the shot, I pulled the card and loaded it up on one of the desktops in the studio to look at it closely before committing the image. I made mental notes and also printed it out to mark it up. Remember that I usually shoot tethered, so I simply convert the shot into Photoshop to review on the laptop.

You can see some of my notes here. I need to open the highlights a little, fix some problems on the background, adjust the lighting on the ball and then make sure the light was even across the laptop. I needed to make sure the shot was lit with the right exposure so I also bracketed my images… from f-22 to f-11. Yes, I knew that f-11 would be too bright on most parts, but if I needed a lighter section of the dark areas, I could always pull it from the lighter images. I didn’t have to do that, but it is always a good idea to have something like that if needed.

Final Shot as produced from the camera

Finished Shot after Photoshop

Here is the final background image. I added the screen from a screenshot as I don’t have the volleyball software running on my machine. I took the screenshot and manipulated it to fit the screen then took the opacity down to 80%. Some usual Photoshop post production work to get a better contrast and some edge darkening.

Thanks for going along for the ride. Shooting images for advertising can be very exciting, but attention to detail can make the difference.

See you next time.

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This post looks at creating an ad from a very simple layout. The client, Dimensional Software in Palo Alto, CA, needed to have an ad produced in nearly no time. An opening in a magazine came up last minute and a fax was sent to me with a sketch of the ad that we had talked about.

We will take a look at how the shot was done, and how making the layout a part of the planning and thinking process.

A reminder to check out the recent posts below for links to some great interviews, lighting information and ideas to give you a lot to do with your photography. The tag cloud on the right, below the banners, also is a great way to find out what is on the site. You can spend all day here, LOL.

Also, you may have noticed the banner on the right side. Midwest Photo Exchange has teamed up with Lighting Essentials to provide a page of hand-picked (by me) lighting gear. From pack/head kits and mono lights, to stands, booms and reflectors, this is a page with some best-of-breed equipment chosen for durability and value. And my readers save 10%. Just click the link to see what is offered.

So, let’s get on with it and see how the ad was created in a very short time.

My client, Gerrie, and I discussed the look and feel of this ad. We had no time to do it but decided we would get it out the door by the end of day. She notified the magazine and we went at it. A discussion of what the featured item was supposed to portray followed. I wanted to know everything about the TapRecorder and why it was an important thing for a volleyball coach to have.

Gerrie explained that this device and software eliminated the hand-written notes, stickies and such, that coaches were using. Gerrie, also a coach, knew the pain and what it would take to eliminate the pain… so we began the design process.

We wanted to feature the software, and we wanted to show visually how the software and device would contrast the messy paperwork of doing it by hand. By placing the hands with the device over a mess, we could show the contrast it was hoped.

Gerrie and I worked with fax and ended up with a quick, ‘napkin’ layout. This is used to keep us both on the same page, not necessarily a heavily designed layout. I work with both, this is a sketch for position.

While there are much tighter layouts out there, these kinds of sketches are done a lot. And they convey a lot of information to the photographer. For instance, we know that there will be headline type at the top of the ad, and that there will be body copy on the side opposite the hands. Copy and type can be a real challenge… color of background, ‘overly busy’ background, or light-to-dark contrast that makes it hard for copy to read.

I began setting up the shot on a small table. Placing the camera at an angle to the board that creates a foreground/background. Choosing the wide angle lens, a Canon 21-35L at approximately 24MM gave me a nice sweeping feel. I try to get an idea of the lens choice and angle and then build to that when doing product and still life. It is just how I work most of the time.

The lighting needed to look like it was natural and real. I took a softbox first and was disappointed with that light… seemed to boring and uninteresting. My second thought was to grab four of five glass blocks and put an Omni behind it in ‘spot’ configuration. Ahh, now I had light coming from the back and some dramatic shadows driven toward the camera. This gave me a much more interesting background.

I took the props and started to build the layout, keeping in my mind where the type was going to go, and where the hands would be. I knew there may be some challenges as the client wanted it to be very cluttered and have type over it. But I had my idea for that already in place so I went ahead and created a pretty dense mess of stickies, charts, and all the rest of the background. We wanted it to look messy and show the contrast, so sometimes you go overboard to drive the point home.

Keeping the light down low added the shadows coming toward the camera

Taking a few exposures at auto white balance showed a pretty warm color from the tungsten Omni. I changed the color balance on the camera to Tungsten and took a few. I was shooting in RAW, so I could have done it in the processing, but I wanted to see what it looked like on the camera. I decided to shoot at both color temps which would be quicker. The shutter speed was long at about 1/4 second.

Building the set was time consuming and I spent a little over an hour working the light and the props till I had them where I wanted them. At that point I took the shots.

You can see the difference in the color here. For me, the warm is too warm and the cool is too cool.

Now I had my background. And I moved to the shots of the hands. Should I shoot them with the background or separately? If I was to shoot them with the background, I would have to light them separately and work the shot to have a drag shutter with the hands in strobe… that could be very time consuming and even a little motion from the hands could create a shadow around them.

Separately – it was a no-brainer decision.

I began looking for some hands. I called a few models I knew and timing wasn’t gonna work. I had to have the shot done by noonish to get it ready for the magazine for end of day delivery. I checked with the people in businesses near me. Scars, bad hands/nails… sheesh.

I did it myself. Moving to shooting on a softbox I did a few shots but the light was very hard to do with one handed shooting. I couldn’t get the fill to come in tight enough cause it was my hand… argh. So I decided on natural light. It would look more ‘natural’ anyway.

I took a white board and two fill cards outside, I set up in the northlight of the studio and set the fill cards in close. Shooting the left hand with the device was fairly easy. I held it out in my left hand and tripped the shutter with my right. The camera was of course on a tripod. However, shooting my right hand with the stylus proved, well, challenging. I was twisted like a pretzel to get it right. I had to take several of those to get it right.

Placing the white board behind the hands meant an easy cut in Photoshop. You can see what I did in the shot below:

With the white board, the hands were very easy to cut out.

Notice how the wide, broad light of the north sky makes a wonderful highlight on the device. Also notice how I turned the angle to get the top right and right side dark in the left hand shot. That is because the right hand would be placed over it. It would not look natural at all if the highlight continued under the right hand. The right hand would naturally cast a shadow, so I had to take that in mind with these shots.

Quickly using the magic lasso tool, I grabbed the hands from both shots and moved them to their own layers. I used a feather of 2 to keep the edges a bit more natural. At this point, I retouched the hands and cleaned up the device.

You can see the layers and the masked forced DOF created by two layers - one sharp and one soft.

The shot above shows the beginnings of the ad as it starts coming together. I used two layers, one soft and one sharp, and a layer mask with a gradient to create the DOF fall off. This further moved the hands into a position of ‘subject.’ I also blended some of the warm background image into some of the cooler image. I think it created a more interesting and rich background, and makes the hands and the device all that more interesting.

The hands fit perfectly, so all I had to do then was get a jpeg screen shot from their device and add it to the shot. Using the transform tools I was able to take the screenshot and carefully place it on the device. I lowered the opacity to about 80% and that let a little of the sheen of the original shot come through and looks more like it is a device screen. A moderate amount of Photoshop blending at the edges and we had it.

Next, I had to add a logo (so that I could keep it transparent) and also the lightened area for the type. Placing the logo on its own layer means that I can move it if necessary. The lightened background area was created by the marquee tool, with a feather of 75. Choose the area I wanted and fill it with white. I then lowered the opacity to a place that felt good and gave it a try. I tweaked it a couple of times to get what I wanted.

Next was to make a copy of the Photoshop file as a flattened Tiff and get it into the page layout program. I was using Quark at this time. I use InDesign now. I still have Quark for some legacy clients, but all my new work is on InDesign. Placing the Tiff in the background, I placed the headlines and copy into the document and sent it for review.

How the final image looks before I placed it in Quark for the copy and headlines

Here is the final background. You can see what we did to the image to get it ready for the text.

Here is the final ad as it ran in the Volleyball magazines.

Final ad as it ran in 5 different Volleyball magazines and trades

Thanks for coming by. We will have another post on shooting to layout soon. That layout is far more detailed and presents a different set of challenges. Please remember to visit my sponsors BorrowLenses.com, Mighty Imaging, SmugMugPro and MPEX and see you next time.

If you are considering a new website, please take a look at our WordPress Themes for Photographers.

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Recently I had the pleasure of working with Coni of Glacier Design and her client, Alicia on a big catalog project. It was to be a couple of dozen shots. Most are what I would call a “drop and pop,” or simple product shot. Well, of course nothing is as simple as one thinks it will be. And that challenge is met so much easier when there is some planning and preparation in effect. And that Alicia and Coni had in spades.

We knew it would be a hectic couple of days and we were pushing against a printing deadline. Alicia came with an SUV full of boxes and bag and props. We set up a few tables in on area of the studio and then placed the items in a shoot order. Coni had set a shot list so nothing would be misses so we organized the product in a fashion that would allow us to get and stage the products in some sort of order.

The product is potpourri, scent bottles, gift boxes and reeds. Most of this is pretty simple, but some of the boxes had a cellophane type material over them and that created a bit of a heartburn when trying to kill the reflection, or at least smooth it out a bit, while still maintaining light to the front of the box.

Before we take a look at this shoot, I want to welcome a new sponsor to the LE Site and the Workshops. SmugMug Pro is now a sponsor of the workshops and every attendee will get a one year membership in the SmugMug Pro account. This allows hi res images, hi def video and includes a shopping cart for selling the images you shoot. I am so pleased with their support and even more excited about seeing all the attendees getting a well designed web page with a shopping cart. And we also want to shout out to my other sponsors, BorrowLenses. com and Mighty Imaging. Thanks guys.

Also to remind everyone that the Kansas City workshop is full as is the Dallas and Washington DC workshops. I am hoping to see some of you in Mexico. At this point we only have three openings for Mexico. And don’t worry about the news, we are heading to Rocky Point and it is pretty calm there. Missoula Montana will be a lot of fun and we are thinking about adding a day to that for those who want to miss a day of work and shoot environmental portraits with me.

Let’s get on to the catalog shoot.

We started out with a shoot list and a ton of product. Some of the images needed to be shot on white seamless and some with a more ‘set’ look to them. We chose to shoot the white background stuff first. And there was a reason for that. The drop and pop stuff had to match existing work, so I looked at the catalog they had shot previously and decided on the lighting that would match.

It was also imperative that the light not change drastically between images. These were inserts, headers and full page shots. They should match for this area of the catalog, so we wanted to create something that would be easy to switch between the drop and pops and the still life work.

I took a strip light and placed it over the set and slightly behind the product shoot area. Slightly… like a few inches. I tilted it a bit forward so we could get just a little bit of light to fill the cards in that I knew I would need. This kind of work demands a lot of fill cards.

I also wanted to have a little ‘pop’ from the rear so I added a grid-spot on a medium Norman reflector. I took it behind the set just a little bit and aimed it at the center point of the product. I set this backlight to be 1/2 stop brighter than the main light. This would give me an ‘edge’ to the shots without adding too much of a ‘rim’ look.

Here is the set I used for these shots:

This is the shot diagram for the still life shoots. The drop and pop are minus the background light. The light facing back was to create a little drama behind the shots and not have the background be so ‘flat’.

Our first shot is one we will look at is a potpourri shot. The background was one that Alicia wanted to have a natural, tropical look. While she built it, I worked on the exposure and fill card variations for the glass. Alicia then carefully built the potpourri to make it show as effectively as possible and I did a few last tests. We then added the glass items and checked to see that there wasn’t any strange reflections that would give us trouble later. Lastly we added the candle. Alicia lit the candle only as we were ready to shoot it.

I should note that for these kind of shots, I usually use a tethered approach, shooting straight into the computer. This lets me tweak the looks and also lets me share with the art director and client the EXACT the shot as it comes out of the camera.

The shot below shows how the background has a nice clean look to it because of the small backlight. The gradient actually brings the eye back to the product itself. In this specific shot I moved the backlight to be a little off center so it wouldn’t have that ‘studio product’ look to it. There are cards in front and to the camera left side keeping the fill in check and when you look at the potpourri, you will see a nice highlight on the edges from the backlight Grid-spot.

The image below shows the way glassware holds up with the lighting. The backlight gives a sparkle to it, and the subtle backlight from the grid-spot on the reeds shows how nice a little extra touch to the lighting can render the image. There is a sense of shape to the reeds and and the liquid looks almost sensual. The fill cards surrounding the set keep the shadows at bay and also add a bit of highlight themselves.

This final shot above shows the boxes and the items for a long thin shot at the top of a catalog page. There are carefully placed cards all around the set to provide a nice smooth transition from the lighted sides to the shadow sides. As well, they provide a smooth surface to be reflected back from the product. This pops the color on the boxes as well as keeping the gold printing nice and shiny.

These shots are always a little tricky so be so very careful in the placement of the items. The angle of the boxes have to seem natural, but still show the items as they are meant to be seen. The labels must be straight, the edges of the boxes cannot be damaged, and if they don’t fit exactly tight, use double edged tape to keep them tightly fitted closed.

We lit the candle at the end of the setup phase and I used a long, 2 second exposure to get the candle to look lit. Once the item was focused, we killed the lights, tripped the shutter and waited for the shutter to close before I turned the modeling lights back on. We had to make sure that the candle wasn’t blowing all over the place and we also needed to make sure that the pool of wax wasn’t too much.

Here are two set shots to show the lighting in the real world, so to speak.

For fun, I will share this fun image I posted on Flickr. You can get an idea of the controlled chaos that happens when there are so many ‘moving parts.’ You can see the camera stand I use and the tethered computer and lighting.

EDIT: Here is a graphic with some pages showing the use of the pics I did.

An apology to those who follow this blog. We have been crazy busy lately and doing some reconfiguring after losing the laptop a few weeks ago. And even though everything was indeed backed up, there are still a lot of business things that were an added challenge due to the loss.

But let me tell you that we have a lot of good things coming up.

I promise.

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This post features two shots from this past weeks workshop in Phoenix. My Phoenix Workshops are fairly intimate affairs because I draw smaller groups and my studio is rather intimate as well.

In the first half of Saturday we work on portrait lighting and working with basic lighting setups. We start with one light and work it until we need to add a second light for some reason. Hairlight, more wrap, additional side lighting, 3-point and more are added to the mix.

For these two shots, I used a single light on the subject. The shot of Briana does have a second light for the background but it is not affecting the subject lighting.

Before we get into that… New Workshop dates are being nailed down now. I have some people wanting me to come to the twin-cities, and we are looking into cleaning up that East Coast month. Maybe moving one of the mid-Atlantic dates to a west coast. Montana is a go and so is Chicago. Watch the signup page for a location near you.

So let’s go look at how we can work with one light to create this look. Some of you who are very familiar with this kind of lighting – it is a favorite of mine – may also find some new things as well.

Starting out with the shot of Hayley we will examine the image closely. Here is the image as processed.

Camera: Canon, 100MM 2.8 Macro

The light on Hayley is one strobe on a boom. Over her about 3 feet, and back behind her about 3 feet. The V-Card in front of her is about 3 feet away and wrapping on both sides of her. Camera is aimed through the slot cut in the middle of the V-Card, and we have to check for possible flair.

Here is a lighting diagram:

I call this lighting “Beach Lighting” and it is one of my favorites. I call it beach lighting because it resembles the light I used to shoot under on the West Coast all the time. Bright, very bright, hazy sun and natural reflection from the sand. It can be somewhat contrasty with the hair blowing out a little in order to get that front light correct, but that is OK within the genre.

If you want the light to be a little less on the top of the hair, take a small boom and put a 10″ square flag or scrim directly above the hair… you will see it go dark as you place it in the angle to create a shadow on the hair. Move and adjust to taste. Be sure it isn’t much bigger than 10″ because you don’t want to kill the light on the V-Card in front of her.

There are so many fun ways to change this lighting up. Adding a small light from camera for a catchlight, adding a couple of small lights to each side of the V-Card to give a softer 3-point light and more. Caution… be aware that the light is turned toward the V-card so if you get too close, you can get some considerable flare. Watch for flare, flag it if necessary.

We had finished shooting white on white, and decided to do some black on black. Briana put the black fur (a studio wardrobe staple, and a fake… so now stop hatin’ on me, got it) and a bright turquoise top for a splash of color.

Our main light is a medium (42″) satin white umbrella in bounce mode. It is on a boom and very close to Briana… close enough to use the ‘wrap’ to add light on both sides of her face. Standing behind your model, you will be able to see how the light from the umbrella helps to wrap around the side of the model’s face. If you can see the umbrella from behind her, the side of her face is being lit.

We added a couple of V-Cards on each side of her to further open the shadows, and then put a shiny board under her to add some edge to the fur. Without these close, very close, V-Card fills, the fur would simply have no texture. Adding some bright cards to create speculars on the tiny hairs of the fur was what was needed.

You can see the bright, open shadows this light created under Briana’s chin and eyes. Keeping the eyes bright is one of the concerns I have when lighting. I find I can keep them open and bright by working the light close to the subject.

I wanted to keep the background dark, but also have some gradient to help bring out the texture of the fur. The eye sees the fur and its subtle texture while the background is subtle but smooth in transition.

We chose a small 33″ umbrella with a black back aimed at the black seamless. It is nearly on the floor and mounted on a short “background” stand. Keeping it about a foot from the background allowed a very soft, subtle light-to-dark background light. I tip my umbrella down very slightly when I do this, not wanting too much of the light to wash up the seamless wall.

The last thing we did was take a 12″ by 36″ white reflector and put it over her head at a totally oblique angle… in other words it is vertical to the light and behind her head about 6″. This gives a very subtle, but visible, hair separation light.

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See ya next time.

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One of the ways to separate the subject from the background is to use a spray light. The light creates a ‘halo’ of light to dark behind the subject and helps make a flat background more dynamic. It is a fairly simple technique with a lot of variations possible.

We can do this with all kinds of lights, from speedlights to normal reflectors and beauty dishes. Each can add its own look to the spray, and make it work within the framework of your image.

Before we get to this technique, I would like to let you know we are adding Montana to our workshop schedule this summer. If you are a photographer in Montana / Wyoming area, be watching the site for our Montana workshop date. UPDATE: Montana is June 20 and 21, 2009. Signup is active on the schedule page.

We are also having a pair of advanced workshops in Phoenix in February and March. We will only be taking photographers who are already familiar with lighting tools, but need to step out and get some real experience with models and shoot situations. Limited to only 3 photographers per day, the workshop is fully focused on shooting. We have models for the day, and will be working in studio and on location. Portfolio / Web Site review will be required. See the Learn to Light site for more information on January 26, 2009.

Now… on to some simple ways to create a spray light and a gradient background for your work.

The portrait of Vanessa shows how the background works to create a light-to-dark base for the face and shoulders. The background is behind her about 10 feet. This helps create a dynamic background for the portrait to sit above. The look is far different than a flat background… and keeps the eyes right on our subject.

Keeping the wall 10 feet or so behind her helps blur it from limited DOF. I am shooting here at about f8 at 1/60 at ISO 100. With an 80-200MM L at this distance, the background drops out pretty fast. I am out to about 160-170mm with the lens, so it is quite a telephoto.

Adding a hair light gives a nice shoulder accent. For this shot there is a silver/white ‘Zebra’ over the top of her and slightly back. It creates a nice little accent that is still there even against the bright background gradient. You should really watch this area, because if it the background is too bright, it can kill the separation between the highlight on the shoulder and the spray light.

Marissa is wearing a white shirt in this shot, and it separates fine from the backlight.

The closer the light, the tighter the spread of light. This shot shows the background light at 6″ from the wall.

This close up shows how close the light is actually to the wall. Just about 6″. I think being very careful with the heat is a great idea.

Now we pull the light back about 2″ to 8″ from the wall. Notice the wider spray, and slightly less contrast from center to edge.

Now to 12″ from the wall or background. The light is now very widely spread and there is a soft gradient from center to edge.

The color for the background here is “Thunder Gray.” You can get that color in seamless, and we have our back studio wall painted that color. This technique works best on the grays and darker colors.

One more shot of Marissa here:

This last shot shows how subtle the look can be. We have a hair light on Marissa, and the spray light is adding a dynamic look behind her. The hair seems to be lit, and yet in the corner we can see some dark background to let the blonde stand out.

I like the spray light look. It can be done with far more subtlety than these as well. Photographers like Platon, who shoot a lot of editorial portraiture, depend on variations of this kind of light to provide subtle definition to their subjects.

Try using a Gary Fong diffuser for some softness, or add a few layers of gel for a color. I find that spray lights work well on dark to medium gray backgrounds. Colored seamless, old canvas, walls and wallpaper can also be used to advantage.

If you try this, post a shot or two to the Flickr Lighting Essentials pool and tag it: le_spray_light. I would love to see how some of you take this idea and change it up.

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Well this one is kind of fun. I found this in the archive box and remembered that it was a kinda fun little slide show. This “soundslide” offers a look into how I took a single lighting setup and shot it two ways.

I use a big softbox often when I am working with talent. Michelle is an ice skating choreographer and teacher. She needed some new shots and I wanted to do something a little different.

You can do the same thing with a large scrim and speedlights. Keep the fill cards in tight and watch the ratio between the lit and shadow parts of the face.

BTW, we have upgraded to WP 2.7 and man, is it cool. If you are running a WP Site and haven’t upgraded yet, you really should. It is, as they say, awesome.

But now let’s take a look at how a single setup can create two different shots can be made from the same light setup.

Push the go button and adjust the speakers. That mellifluous tone is yours truly. Hey… I don’t want to hear it. But you do.

I think the SoundSlide Presentation pretty well shows everything you need. Watch for more multimedia coming down the pike here.

Here is the diagram for the lighting used.

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Today’s update is one from the archives, but it is still a great post you will enjoy. Even includes a 16 minute video… bad audio, but you will get the ideas from the shoot. We are doing better audio for our next releases, but this is what it is.

I would like to take a few lines here to discuss the upcoming workshop schedule for next year. We are heading to new places and been invited back to some great places we visited this year. We are always looking for new cities and hosts to help us bring the workshops in. The workshops are very different for next year… and the workbook will be fantastic. Those of you who have taken the workshop will be able to download it from the member’s page as soon as it is finished… before the first of the year.

I also want to say that it has been a memorable year meeting all kinds of new people and making friends in cities far away. I wish I had more time to stay in touch with each and every one of you, but alas… However, if you have questions or want to share your work with us, please hit the Flickr group for Lighting Essentials. This group is for people who have taken the workshop or have the DVD.

Our next couple of Tech Sheets are ready and I think they may surprise you. The one for this Friday is a product shoot with lots of reflective surfaces. We accomplish a lot of finesse with only one light. And you can follow along with your own item and learn a lot about doing small item product photography.

If you haven’t checked out the Magazine in a while, we have big plans for it and it will be getting its own URL very soon. Let me know if you like the interviews and insights, I do like working on it.

Be sure to see the previous post on shooting with two strobes on the beach… Not your typical two strobe setup.

So let’s jump back in time about a year (and 30 pounds for me) ago and take a look at three studio shoots with simple tools.

Here’s the movie: pardon on the ad that pops up – that’s not from me. When we went with Megavideo, they didn’t have this crap… you will have to close the window that pops with the free movies. I am very sorry about this new item they have introduced. I will be moving the movie to a new host very soon… but for now you will be annoyed. Sheesh

This video tutorial starts with a simple one umbrella and fill card headshot. I consider it a classic glamour look with flat light and dramatic fall off on the sides. We use a shiny fill card to open the shadows under the chin, lip, nose and eye sockets. It also lights up the eyes very well to present them in stunning color. Our model is Briana.

Gallery from first setup:

And a sample of the Contact Sheet:

Our second shot finds us using a piece of equipment for the first time. This is essentially one way I test out new equipment this same way: bring in a model and try the light by itself, then add fill and modifiers to see how the light reacts with it. In this case it is Megan’s DIY beauty dish. Amazing… an IKEA light reflector and a speedlight with a little ingenuity and super glue. Total price for this cool tool… > $10. We add fill cards and shiny cards, and I climb up on a small box for a somewhat different view. Below are some images from this setup.

And a Contact Sheet View:

The last shot uses two speedlights: one is the main and in a circular parabolic with tissue paper over it, the second with the home made beauty dish aimed at the background very close to it. This gives a very nice, gradual fall off for a back light. I really liked the look of this and will be doing another shoot with it soon. I have since used this on several shots and loved the look. Very precise modeling of features is its strong point.

Images from the setup above:

And a final Contact Sheet view:

Some PP notes:

I have a pretty standard way of working with pure photography, no special effects and such. For this image I processed it out of Canon software at a solid neutral exposure. I did not color correct it even though the tissue paper did leave a bit of a warm cast on the skin.

1. used healing brush to clear skin. I do this on a layer above the face most of the time.
2. used clone tool – lighten – @25% to further clear skin and problems. On the same layer as above.
3. created a new layer from the image and used the blend mode “soft light” at 25% opacity
4. I added a layer mask to this layer to paint back in some shadow density.
5. added a layer of 50% gray at softlight blend mode and then painted white at 4% for highlights (soft brush). This is a very gradual process and at 4% you can simply tweak it in with increments… not a slash and burn attack… heh.
6. Saved and created a new document from the combined layers. The first document is then saved as an archived base image for further exploration later if I choose.

The new document now has a clean face with perfect exposure. I added a little color correction with the photo filters 80A at 40% to clean some of the warmth up and then added my luminosity layers. These take a while to learn, but after you play with them for a while you will simply never be satisfied without them ever again. Tony Kuyper has them for you here: Please make a donation for all his time and pick them up. You will simply fall in love with them. Or you could do them yourself. Should only take a couple of months… heh.

Here is a screenshot of the Photoshop document with the luminosity masks:

The image has very little Photoshop trickery to it, but it does have some solid photographic background for the correction of blemishes and added contrast.

Hope you enjoyed and see you next time.

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Well we are back from the Cleveland workshop and it was amazing. Bright sun and clear skies were a super benefit… for someone somewhere… we had rain, wind, snow, rain, wind and cold. At least for Bri and I coming from the desert… We left Cleveland at about 28 degrees and landed at Sky Harbor at about 78. And that was at night.

I wanted to get a post done over the weekend, but dang… those Clevelanders (and Illinois, Indiana, Connecticut and Georgia) folks know how to have a workshop. It was amazing. We rolled with the inclement weather and did about a gazillion setups. No complaining… just rolled up sleeves and shooting shooting shooting.

Anyway, there was a discussion recently about clamshell lighting and I thought of this earlier shot I did of Briana with a simple clamshell setup. So I thought it may be nice to include it here while I put the finishing touches on this weeks Tech Sheet.

Clamshell lighting is sometimes described as a light source and a fill card, but I have always thought of it as two umbrellas, usually matching, right on the vertical axis of the camera with one over the lens and one under the lens. I have used this from very close to medium distance and love the results.

Cool thing is you can do this same lighting with small strobes as well as studio guns. With small strobes you have the added benefit (to me anyway) of powering them down and getting a very large aperture for limited DOF.

Let’s take a look at how this lighting works:

Briana is very close to the background in these shots.

As you can see in the image, I have placed Bri right next to the background. In this case it is a piece of the V-Card… fome core actually. The background gives a great specular edge (since Bri’s head is hiding most of the specular) and a wonderful little shadow all around her. Somewhat like a ring light would do. This is because the lights are so close to the lens that it has much of the characteristics of a ring flash.

Here are is the setup shot showing how the umbrellas are placed from camera:

Briana in the light of two umbrellas for a clamshell approach.

This shot shows the distance of the umbrellas from Bri as we do the shots:

Two matching 32\

I like using matching umbrellas for a lot of reasons… power is the same, faster setup and the matched catch-lights all make it worth getting two of the umbrellas that you plan on using. I could use larger ones, but I think that the smaller work better for me to get in close. I love the drop off of close lighting and the effect that it has on the skin.

Alternate Post Process on Briana with Clamshell Lighting

The lights provide a soft shadow that is directly behind the model.

You can see how soft the shadow is behind her even though there is little fill added on either side. You can add all the fill you want, it is ‘flavor to taste’ and I chose to leave it out for a more striking frontal light. This shadow just peeks around the subject and adds a bit of gradient to the image that helps the subject stand off the background even while being right next to it.

Another shot of Briana with the Clamshell Lighting:

I also like the way the white pops off the background because of the slight shadow caused by the clamshell.

Assignment to try:
1. Try your clamshell with shoot through umbrellas as well. While I am not a fan of them, they can be somewhat different in the effect they give and can become another tool for your shots. Bring your lights in as close as you can and see what effect they have then shoot the same thing with the bounce umbrella.

2. Add a fill card on both sides of your model… in close, right out of camera. Take a few shots and move them away 6 inches at a time.

3. Try using speedlights at 1/16 or even 1/32 power with shoot throughs and in very tight to try to get f-2.8 or 4 and drop the depth of field to as little as possible. Keep focus on the eyes.

Thanks for dropping by. New tech sheet coming this Friday. Watch the site for some announcements on next years workshops. They are being totally redesigned and will be better than ever. We do want to have the best workshop anyone has ever attended.

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Sometimes you just want a simple image, a headshot or a 3/4 image that has a very direct light to show the skin color, open the eyes and bring some vivid highlights to the person.

I like the big softbox and how it can simply wash the person with a clean, bright light that seems to make them glow. Usually I work the box to the side, like a large window light, but for this portrait of, well… you know (heh), I decided to do an on-camera axis shot. Many times I use an umbrella in this position, but the large, diffuse, square softbox light was intriguing.

I added a large shiny board below the softbox that would reflect the light up from the floor area and provide a bright, shiny, poppy light for bottom fill.

Before we head on over to the tutorial, I just want to make sure we have a few links taken care of here:
November Wallpapers
The Cleveland Workshop
Our November 1 Tech Sheet
Should Photography be Easy

Now, on to the tutorial.

Before we start, here is the full image as it was processed.

You can see how the light is open and bright on her torso. and how the eyes seem alive with the open light and slight reflection of the shiny card below. Briana is standing in front of the V-card and there is some natural wrap going on there with the slightly angled V-card. you can see it on her shoulder edges and the way the light seems to stay pretty clean across her shoulders.

There is enough fall to show the shape, but the light doesn’t simply fall away like it would with a smaller light source without the V-Card behind her.

One of the most important parts of this setup is to make sure that the light is actually reflected back on to the model. I stand behind the model and look into the shiny board to see if the reflection is bright on the board. Once I show the model what to look for, they can let me know if the reflection is there.

Here you can see the light as it is reflected off the shiny board and on to Briana in position for the portrait.

Keeping the light source very close to the subject gave a liquid look to the highlights on the lips, nails and especially the jacket and top. The soft highlights give the shot a warmth that is natural.

You can see how close the light is to Briana here. The shiny board is 4 feet square and covered with a textured bright material.

The set as seen from the camera area (not on camera axis) shows how close the background is to Briana. This keeps the light from the box falling on the background as well as her. Since the light is way larger than she is, the light wraps around and doesn’t create any shadows. This natural wrap helps to keep the image more open and bright. The brightness of the background also helps Briana stand out from it.

You can see how the light wraps around her and keeps the background with very little shadow.

Shooting from between the softbox and the shiny board gives a total ‘wash’ of light to the subject. Here is a second shot from the session.

This image shows how nice the light spreads across the skin and highlights the curves of the wardrobe.

I hope you liked this tutorial on using the bright shiny board and large softbox. Give it a try… you can even use a scrim or very large umbrella in the same position. If you try this with speedlights, try using a couple of them to spread the light wider across the scrim or into the umbrella.

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We are so excited about the new series we are starting… the “Tech Sheet” series. We will do one every two weeks and they will be uploaded on the first Friday and the third Friday of each month. Those months with an extra Friday will find an extra Tech Sheet.

The “Tech Sheets” will have lots of information breaking down one shot. We have jewelry, still life, product, fashion, glamor, headshots and more coming. We will cover studio and location. This first Tech Sheet is a breakdown of an image, and the Photoshop used, that we did for a demonstration at the Houston workshop in November 2008.

Nicole was ready to jump and the studio had these two cool windows with clouds outside. It seemed custom made for a wide angle shot, and the exposed brick was an added kick, ya know!

Before we get to it, we still have a few openings in the Cleveland workshop coming up November 15 – 16, 2008. Get on over and sign up if you can get to the area to join us.

And don’t forget the free wallpaper for November available here.

Let’s take a look at the tech sheet here:
Please feel free to download it and print it out. (right click and “Save Link As”)

Feel free to download and print this to keep for your files.

The use of one diffused hard light can create a pretty cool image. I try not to get the light too far off of camera axis though, maybe a max of 20% either side. I prefer not to have large shadows from noses and lips and cheeks so I keep the light working toward my model and my model toward my light.

To keep it from looking “on-camera” I kept the light high and the camera very low. I actually am not looking through the viewfinder as the camera is right on the floor slightly tilted up. I determined that angle by a couple of tests. I also shot the windows without the strobe going off to determine the correct exposure of the image. F-16 at 1/100 seemed to give me the best look at the clouds through the window (why not… f-16 rule and all).

Test one for angle:

Test two had her jumping to make sure she didn’t jump out of the frame:

You can see that she is throwing her head too far back for the image to work. I had her look down at me for the next series of jumps. I also determined that I had enough angle to make sure she and the floor were in the shot from that distance. Time to shoot a few frames.

IMPORTANT LIGHTING NOTE: I have the strobe on a boom and it is being held by a workshop attendee. While the basic point of the light is on axis, I did ask him to watch her face and correct the light slightly to match the axis of her face. This means the light would slide a little to left or right as she would jump to keep the light directly on her face.

And here is the image we created:

You can see how we did it on the tech sheet, but let’s take a little time and look at the Photoshop work we did. I strive to get it right in the camera, so there isn’t a lot of extra work done on this image. You can feel free to do whatever you want in Photoshop though, it’s all good with me.

First I knew that the shadow area was going to be a little dark so I processed a lighter version of the same Raw file that I had selected. I added a full stop to it and processed. That gave me two JPEGS… one at exposure and one a stop over. I held the shift key down and moved the normal image over the darker image.

You can see the lighter processed image on the left. holding the shift key down I dragged the image from the right over the image on the left.

I then added a layer mask to the top layer and gently exposed the lighter image where her boots and the wall was. I use a brush at 10% so that I can slowly get to what I want instead of just ripping it open.

After that work, I add a layer of 50% gray and using a soft brush, white, at 7% paint in some highlights and lightened areas. Face a little, jacket, black dress, highlights on boots and a few areas of bricks. To make some of the lighter areas darker, I paint on that layer with black at 7%. It is very important to just add it a little at a time… building to what you want instead of just banging it out.

Using a layer mask that is only applied to the lightest pixels, I open the highs up a slight bit. I use Tony Kuypers masks for doing this. You can see how gentle the curve adjustment is. I made a composite layer above the others to do this work on.

A slight curve adjustment added to only the brightest levels of pixes makes a huge difference in the normally flat digital image.

Here is the image with all of the adjustment layers added turned off:

You can see that the three layers for light, dark and midtone are off. The image looks fine, but it can look better.

Here you can see how the image looks with the three layer masks turned on.

You can see the difference in the image with the three layers turned on.

Assignment:

Do a shot with a single hard light. Add some diffusion to get a softer edge, but keep the light very ‘poppy’ and bright. Try not to get too many shadows by keeping the light high and close to camera axis. You can place the images at my Lighting Essentials Group at Flickr here. We don’t have prizes yet, but we are working on something cool. Title it November LETS Assignment 1.

I hope you enjoy these. They are really going to be fun.

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