There are times when the natural light is simply so gorgeous you have to shoot it. And there are times when the natural light is very nice, but something can be done to make it a bit more, well, perfect.

We are going to look at 4 examples of using modifiers to create an image where we are using the natural light as our main source, but add a little something with our modifiers. Simple shots with simple solutions.

Our first shot is Kymmy at the Detroit workshop.
We found this cool entryway facing south with the sun still pretty high in the sky. Placing Kymmy just under the eaves put her into the shade with some wonderful light giving a soft, wrapped look to her. it made her skin nearly glow and gave some nice modeling to her shape.

However, we saw that the interior of the doorway behind her was way too dark. It made her stand out against the black background with an un-natural look to it. We added a speedlight in the corner on a ledge and aimed it at the back of the entryway. It was zoomed out to wide angle coverage and we fired it with a wireless trigger. The power was very low and it only opened up the shadowy area. I didn’t want a ‘blast’ of backlight or highlights on the painted wood, just a little bit of light to fill in the darkness and make the image look more natural.

Next we have Stacia standing with the light coming behind her. She is mostly lit by the large white building behind me, but a wink of fill-flash was all we needed to open up her eyes and add some light to her skin. Since the speedlight was set to only add 1/3 stop over the ambient natural light, no shadows result, nor is it looking like a harshly lit ‘Fill Flash’ image. Gently using the flash at minimal power can make wonderful little tweaks to the already lovely natural light.

Here we have Briana on the Freeway. I am not going to go into the story that this image led to, but suffice it to say that it was a tense moment with us and a cop who had been lied to by a ‘concerned citizen’ with a filthy mind. Let’s talk light though.

The point of this shot was to make Briana look like a natural part of the landscape, not a ‘hero’ or somehow to light her with artificiality. I took the ambient reading and set the flash to match that. That is all you need to do on shots like this. Just set the flash to match the soft overall light, and when it flashes it only affects the darker and shadow areas of the image, opening them ever so slightly to give better skin tones. You can see the reflection of the light on the pole, as there was a resulting natural specular, but it is nealy un-noticed at all on Briana and the surroundings.

Lastly we have Malisha in Sunnyvale at the workshop. I was loving the way the wind was whipping her hair around and giving it that soft, sexy look. She was standing under an awning and being lit by the sky and the buildings behind me. That’s it. I loved the fact that her makeup and coloring matched the color behind her, so I had one of the workshop attendees use the Gold reflector to shine a bit on the background. This gave the image a gradient on the background, making Malisha pop a bit more, and it also added some depth to the image, taking out the flat look that open shade can have.

When you are setting up a shot and it looks like natural light may be the way to go, think about whether or not adding a little modification could make the shot pop even more without even being noticed. Whether it is to make the background more interesting, or to open up the eyes, add sheen to the skin or make the soft overcast ambient have bit more punch, a little modification could make the difference.

This shot of Briana was taken at the New York City workshop and uses a method of flash and ambient controlled to look somewhat natural. Blending the two for portraiture can be very attractive and give the image a more natural look.

We used the ambient light from outside through the window and added our own interior light for the subject. An Alien Bee in a softbox provided the main light while we added a wink of light from a speedlight for a subtle edge.

First we checked to make sure how we wanted our ambient light to read. We took and exposure reading and set the camera for that aperture. We were also careful to make sure our shutter speed was within the range that would allow flash sync. We made a test exposure just to see what it would look like with the ambient only.

As you can see the background has light on it, and looks rather subdued because of the cloudy / hazy day. This was the natural look we were going for. There is a bit of spill on Briana’s shoulders and hair from the backlight, subdued as it is. This gives the image a bit of ‘place’ and lets the viewer know she is standing in front of a window with light coming in from it. To not have the natural light on the hair and shoulders would make the image look like it was lit separately from the background instead of blending it in.

Our goal now was to bring in our main light and edge light to match that ambient outside. It was important also that the image look natural but with a little bit of ‘edge’ to it to liven it up. Our main light, the AB400 with softbox was brought in from camera left, and placed slightly above her forehead for centering. The light gave a nice modeling to her face and body. It also seemed to be a natural light from the environment (windows and ambient light in the room) and looked a little like our eyes saw her without the contrast of the background.

We wanted a little more kick to it though, so we added a speedlight at 1/16 from far camera right and behind her as far as possible with the wall there. This light measured 1/2 stop less than the main light, but because of the angle and the fact that it is coming in from the shadow side, it added quite a nice little edge to her left side. See the nice light on her hair and arms, and also how it livens up the jeans on the shadow side. The resulting highlights on both sides of her are as we would be seeing them in real life with the light ‘wrapping’ around from behind.

The resulting image has some nice spill over her shoulders which gives the impression of backlight. The small kicker gives the image a separation and a little bit of edge to her left side (camera right), and the shadows from her hair give the shot some depth and a feeling of ‘light’ being natural and part of the scene.

Thanks for visiting Lighting Essentials. If you have any questions or would like to know how to do something with your lighting, drop us an email. If you are a writer and would be interested in publishing on our sister site www.lighting-essentials.com/magazine let me know and we can talk.

We were walking up to the Hudson River and the light was glaring, too hazy to make out much and with little natural fill. The surroundings offered little in the way of background or texture and overall it was a disaster of a place to shoot at that moment in time.

Perfect. I wanted to show the workshop folks how you can visualize an image and make it yours even if the background, and the light, sucks.

This shot was taken in the available light a few moments later. I had forgotten to take the pic with my camera of the scene as it was with no additional light. I think you can see the very bad light and hazy background / blown out sky that the set provided. The use of the speedlight to create the effect is a rather easy one. Just keep in mind that the f-stop exposure will be based on the speedlight, and the ambient will be controlled by the shutter speed.

I had Briana come to the railing. It was a piece of background that could be used for its angular lines and something for her to react with. The backlight was brutal so I decided to underexpose the background by two stops. A meter reading told me that f-11 at 1/125 would be the exposure for a dead looking shot with correct exposure. Ick.

I chose to underexpose by two stops so I used the shutter speed to 1/250 for one stop under and then to f-16 for the second stop under exposure. f-16 at 1/250 is two stops under f-11 at 1/125.

We brought the speedlight in close and zoomed it to wide angle. Since I already knew where the strobe would be placed to give me f-11 at 1/8 power, I simply changed to 1/4 power and had f-16. I wanted to make a more interesting shot than to have the flash right on her, so I had Bill aim it away from her just a bit. The result:

As you can see, the light becomes the interesting thing about the image and the underexposed background looks kinda cool. The hazy, crappy light is replaced by a more contrasty city and gritty looking clouds.

I backed up with the wide angle and got lower so I could isolate Briana from the wild sky. The sun was above her head and the resulting flare ended up being pretty cool. I now had the light moved to be as nearly on axis of the camera as possible. This eliminated sidelight shadows and more fully illuminated her face and arms. Even though the strobe was zoomed out a bit, it was still so close to Briana that it seems almost snooted… a beam of light. Notice the deep shadows coming from Briana’s shoes forward. That shows that at the bottom of the image, the sun was still more powerful than the strobe.

I realized that fighting the flare would ultimately be a losing proposition even though I kind of liked the image, so I had Briana place herself with the shadow of her head covering my lens. Since she was looking down, it was an easy task for her to make sure she was shadowing my lens. By that action, the sun was placed directly behind her head. Bill came in close with the strobe and we made a few more images.

The shot looked pretty good but I wanted a bit better placement of the light so I had Bill lower the light a bit and we took another shot. That is what I wanted to do. Create a shot in really bad light and turn the bad light into at least interesting backlight.

The next time you have a location that simply looks pretty bad, try doing something with your speedlight to make it a more interesting location. By lowering the ambient light and using your strobe to light the subject, you create a moody, dramatic image with lots of depth.

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There is something beautiful about sunlight. It has a feeling that is so warm and natural and it can make people seem to almost glow. I love it so when I saw it happening in a studio in Detroit, I knew I wanted to take advantage of it.

Briana had been posing for some backlit shots with strobe and when she turned to go to the window I saw her pass through this little stream of light. The light was broken up by the window frame and seemed to have a little secondary glow on the dress below. This light-dark-light gave the image some depth.

Here is the first image I shot from a small ladder. I wanted the downward look to the image to allow a feeling of a fleeting moment. The image in my mind should look like she was rushing by and the viewer caught the view for only an instant.

I had her lean forward just a little bit to add some direction to the shot and then worked her face in the light watching for too much shadow / hard edges. Keeping her turned toward the sun mitigates a lot of that hard shadow look. You can see that I made sure there was a little bit of light behind her so that there would be separation and definition of her hair against the background.

The image above received a little desaturation and some skin smoothing.

Here is a second image from the same position. I added some significant Photoshop texturizing and a little sepia mixed in. Notice the angle of the face into the light to mitigate heavy shadows.

The last shot is a close up and I brought myself down a little to get more in line with the light. By keeping her face and light closer to the axis of the camera, I was able to achieve what seems like a soft light with a very direct hard sun.

Try doing some late day, direct light headshots. It must be near sunset though, as making your model stare into direct sun can be very hard on her eyes and un-necessary. Keep the light on axis as much as possible. That means placing yourself between the sun and the model so the light is coming from the direction of the camera. If you want to add a little more drama, move to the side but keep your model’s face turned toward the sun.

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Everything reflects. That is something you will hear me say all the time. Whether at the workshop or working one on one with a photographer, one of the most important things to drive home is that everything reflects. Skin, silver, blue sweaters… they all reflect, but at obviously different qualities.

In this photograph we wanted a very deep shadow to create more mystery around the already mysterious image. The model with luscious lips emerging from behind the mask. In my mind, I wanted her to be emerging from the darkness as well. The mask is very glossy, so I knew a large, liquid highlight was called for so that the curves of the mask and her face would be smooth and soft.

Using a large softbox very close to the subject provided a large reflection of the source on the mask, her fingernails and her skin. This light, quite powerful, also provided some fill on the shadow side of her face because it simply lit up the wall. Even thought the wall was quite a distance from her, the fact that her skin reflected the light on the wall was problematic. It also provided a nice kick of reflection on the mask… one that I didn’t want.

To mitigate the reflection and increase the contrast I hung a 6′x6′ black cloth just to the right of the image and in as close as possible. This black cloth provided two qualities: it blocked the light from hitting the wall, and more importantly, it gave the skin and the mask something dark to reflect.

I essentially ’subtracted’ the light from the shadow side of the image. Please note that there is no Photoshop on this image to darken or ‘burn’ that area in. The transparency is perfectly black and the contrast is as you see in the image.

You will notice that just on the edge of the mask as it disappears into the darkness, there is a little edge light going on. That is caused by the ribbon catching the light and creating a little fill of its own. I thought it was very subtle and added to the image by providing a point of diminution… where the final vestiges of the mask and the subject go into total shadow. Sometimes little things can really make the shot come alive. Look for them in your shots.

(I shot this on a 4×5 view camera, but you can do the same thing with any camera setup.)

This shot is another subtractive lighting still life. It was shot for a client who wanted the feeling of strength for their software tools. The theme was bodybuilding and they came up with the idea of a body builder with light coming in from the side. Yeah. Never seen that before. I pushed for a still life and they said go ahead and shoot it cause they could use it for something else if they didn’t use it for the brochure cover.

The light in this case is quite different. I will explain and add a diagram to show how different it is. I call it edge light or feathered light. The camera is focused down on the still life which is an old rusted weight, some weight lifting gloves and chalk that they use for working with the iron. All is on a 4×4 sheet of ’stone’ slate. The camera in this case is a Deardorff 8×10 with a 375MM lens. Shot at f32 I would have loved another stop, but this was optimal for what we could do.

Diagram of setup:

You can see where the dark shadows play at the right side of everything. Deep and mysterious, they help create the drama. It also creates a nice light for revealing texture. Whether it is the leather or the slate background, the textures make the shot richer and more interesting. Notice the white chalk. I deliberately placed it on the far side from the light so that it wouldn’t be too bright or lose texture. The addition of the black subtractive card increased the contrast. Without the subtractive, there was nearly no texture in that lump of chalk.

When I delivered the shot, I made a presentation holder with the 8×10 transparency mounted in it. (I always shoot two sets of transparencies or more on shots like this.) The client went nuts. They ended up making some really cool large wall graphics and I shot 3 more similar still lifes for them. They tripled the shoot fee and it was a nice job. Oh, and I didn’t have to shoot some bodybuilder dude with the side light.

Recommended:
I keep a 4×4ft square of black cloth with me in my kit. It comes in handy on many shoots where there is a little glare to be knocked down, or I need to darken an area or do a little subtractive lighting. It packs very small, and can be invaluable… oh, and it is big enough to do a headshot against black on location if you need it. And a little bit of speedlight and ambient light mixed against a dark background can be very dramatic.

Information for today’s photographer. From novice to pro, LE Magazine has it all.

I thought it may be fun to feature some of the shots and student work from these workshops. It will be an ongoing feature and as I see some images from the students, I will post with some lighting info.


Jeff Keen (Bliss Portraits) shot this image of Stacia in the stairwell of Lynne’s studio. There was a lot of light spilling into the stairwell from the front of the building, but it got quite dark toward the top of the stairs. Jeff used a speedlight and bounced it into the hall in front of Stacia, high and to camera left. It was on 1/16th power and only offered a very small amount of flash. Jeff chose to shoot at the correct exposure of the flash and let the ambient light flood into the space and warm the shot.

Next up is Roel’s shot of Stacia in the road in front of Lynne’s studio. Part of the challenge is to make a shot when there is no shot to be had. The road was mundane, but we used a wide angle lens to create drama and then “Beat the Sun” by two stops and lit Stacia with speedlights. This effectively underexposed the ambient and gave it almost a ‘night’ look to the image. Creating the lighting on Stacia, we made her stand out as the subject and ‘hero’.

Roel used two matching speedlights and they were on the voice-activated boom stands (Jeff and I). We kept the lights focused on her face and close enough to provide the f22 we needed at 1/200. We had the speedlights dialed down to 1/8 power on each.

Here you can see the lighting that Jeff had used for the stairwell shot above as it applied to Roel’s headshot. Roel (Roel Photo) was using the same light, as Jeff, but zoomed in with a tight take on Stacia’s face. You can see how nice the ambient adds some sculpting and nice highlights along the edges of her face.

Information for today’s photographer. From novice to pro, LE Magazine has it all.

Jeff (Bliss Portraits) is up again with this shot of Nikki taken in a small dressing room. We used a single hot light (Home Depot, $11) and lit her against the blinds and the lit wall behind her. This shot features a slight spotlight look because the light is so close to her. Jeff simply dialed it in with his LCD, and had it nailed in a just a few shots. Photoshop was used to add a little bit of illustrative look to the image.

Will Brenner shot Stacia in the street as well, but we pulled the camera right flash to a different angle, only grazing her left side. This gives the image a side lit look. He added to the look with some Photoshop magic, giving it a more illustrative look. While similar to Roel’s, it has its very own look.

Roel (www.roelphoto.com) just sent an image of Jenny that looks simple, but there is a lot of stuff going on here. Jenny is sitting in Lynnes office with a lot of windows facing south. The light was beautiful and plentiful, but also very directed from the window side. We added a strobe bouncing into a large reflector over and slightly in front of Jenny to open the shadows while letting the ambient light dominate. Roel chose to drag the shutter to bring in the makeup lights behind Jenny.

Getting really nice, soft light on location can be a challenge. Too often photographers use their naked flashes for fill and end up with something more harsh than they expected. Using a flash to fill in ambient light can be far more subtle and rewarding.

For this shot of my daughter, I used a large white umbrella and a 430EZ flash with remote triggers. To the right side of her I used a bright fill card. Let’s examine how easy it is to get this clean, non flash look.
(Our March Review is here.)

I looked for a place where the sunlight was coming through the large park trees and giving me some dappled areas for Alissa to sit in. This keeps her out of the bright sunny areas which can cause too much fill coming up from the ground. Essentially she is in the shade with a little bit of sun on her shoulders and neck. This is a comfortable area for your model to sit in as well.

I did a quick meter of the sunlight falling on her head at 1/100 of a second. I choose that as a starting point whenever there is sunlight. My ISO is normally set to 100 as well. 1/100 also allows my flash to sync and I can go up a stop easily to 1/200 if I need to.

The meter gave me f5.6. I wanted the light to be a bit more ‘poppy’ so I settled on f5 (a 1/3 stop overexposure of the backlight) and got my flash ready.

I have pre-measured my flash and umbrella combination and knew that at 3 feet it would give me f5.6 at 1/8 power at ISO 100. I made sure it was zoomed to ‘24mm’ which gives the widest coverage of the umbrella, and set the flash at 3 feet. Since I was shooting at f5, I simply moved it back6 inches and shot a test shot. Perfect. Pre-measuring your light can be quite a time saver. I would use string or cord for a few months, eventually you will become an expert at gaging the distance.

Below you can see a side by side comparison of the top of the head. note that they are practically the same. The exposure for the ambient is not affected by the strobe. I am only filling the shadow areas with light to bring the face up to exposure with the ambient.

I generally take a shot or two without the flash to make sure that the ambient and direct backlight are what I want to begin with. Here is a shot without the flash or fill card:

Here is the shot with the strobe in the umbrella and the fill card in close on the camera right side. You can see the umbrella and fill card in the eyes. I make sure that the eyes have a nice look to them by bringing in the sources and ‘opening’ the eyes instead of distant pinpoints of source light.

I have created a to scale setup diagram. You can see that the flash is close to 3 feet away. It is also tipped very slightly to fill the top of the head as well as the face. Slightly being the operative word here.

Information for today’s photographer. From novice to pro, LE Magazine has it all.

Because of the way we entered the info, some of the new items for March ended up in the legacy area far before they should have. But our focus was getting the content on the pages and we just put our heads down and got it done. Here is a roundup of the fun stuff we did in March.

Josh Targownik was one of our first guest writers. His interesting and effective way of shooting Jewelry can be found here. Josh’s studio is in LA.

Here is a tutorial on using gold reflectors. Lots of images and some differing techniques.
Using Gold Reflectors for Effect

Beating the Sun with a Small Flash in a Miami, Arizona Alley was a well received article. There is a diagram there as well as several tips on using small strobes on location.

Adding a feature with a cute girl in a bikini is always a good idea to drive traffic. Anyway, this tutorial of shooting Briana in the surf combines cute girl with real information.

Here is a workshop on one light portraiture with two ways of shooting to get very different results.

Our Four Part “Two Light Workshop” starts here.

Information for today’s photographer. From novice to pro, LE Magazine has it all.

Over at the Lighting Essentials Magazine:

Ever thought about hiring a model at one of the online agencies? Read this first.

Marc Jacobs launched a terrific campaign featuring two very good natured tennis players. Take a look here.

In the Inspiration area, there are some wonderful places to view exceptional photography.

Client expectations:
1. Shoot 30 earrings (silver, gold, translucent and opaque stones).
2. Earring images must be on a pure white background.
3. Full earring must be visible, including ear hook/stud/etc.
4. Some earrings dangle, and must appear to be hanging.
5. No cast shadows on the background.
6. Avoid Photoshop (Lightroom is OK)


From Josh:
“I had a table and softbox arranged to give me a well lit place to shoot the jewelry. The softbox offered a very soft, and smooth main light source. Under the softbox, sitting on the table was a white, translucent plastic bin (the open end facing the camera). Across the open end of the bin, I stretched plastic wrap. I stuck the earrings through the plastic wrap, and even though there were a lot of stretch marks, holes, and rips, none of them showed up in the photo. No post processing needed. Then I draped a white sheet over the whole thing to make a light tent, and shot all 30 pieces the same way.

As you can see, the whole piece is visible and they look like they are hanging The pure white background is clean and without shadow. Laying them on a surface would have resulted in tiny shadows and mounting them from behind with rod or stick would have been a painstaking long approach. And with some of these items being so tiny, it would have been almost impossible to hide a stick in the shots. Additionally, by using plastic wrap instead of a fishing line, the pieces were held steady, with no swinging, so there were no problems with blur from motion or focus errors.”

At Lighting Essentials we love it when a clever approach comes up and is well executed. Thanks Josh. You can visit Josh at his web site: Joshua Targownik | www.targophoto.com
Here’s another look at how well this worked for Josh… and his client. I like the clean look of the jewels as well as the subtle highlights that give the earrings shape and context. These will look great printed large or small on the web.

Below Josh shares his lighting scheme with you. He is using an IKEA tray to hold the plastic wrap and provide the white background. The larger box gives a nice clean backlight and he is using a speedlight below the box to add just a little kick of light from the opposite direction to make sure the white stays clean. Take a shot at it the next time you need to do some earrings, rings, jewels or other kinds of still life. I can think of lots of uses for this kind of setup. You can see all the shots Josh did for his client here.

NOTE: It is important to note that Josh covered the entire set with a white cloth (sheet or other white material) that is not shown on the diagram. That material was critical in making sure there was light on the front of the jewelry as well. It draped down in front of the jewelry and in front of the camera. Do not forget this critical piece of the setup when you create it for your setups.

Information for today’s photographer. From novice to pro, LE Magazine has it all.

I used a staple of lighting that I use on head shots: One large soft box and lots of fill cards. I control the contrast with V-Cards or fill cards and change up the background as I like.

I added a shiny panel to the area below her and angled to catch some of the light from the softbox. This little ‘kicker’ light adds a nice snap to the skin and under chin area. The softbox is to the left of camera and the V-Card fill is to camera right. I have a large fome core panel behind her and in pretty close for the background. This is a shot from that setup:

Here is a setup shot. This shot shows the dark background. I had removed the background fome core so we could do some dark background shots.

As I was adding the white background card I noticed how gorgeous the light was as she turned to look at me. I quickly grapped the camera and shot from that angle… literally along the line of the background card. Since she was at the rear of the softbox, when she turned to me the light from the softbox was actually going by her and she was lit by the edge, or ‘feather’ of the softbox. The light wrapped on all the white cards and added that subtle little backlight on the chin and neck. I love this light!

Information for today’s photographer. From novice to pro, LE Magazine has it all.

Here is a lighting diagram for this shoot. You can see the two camera angles with the associated images. Try this light sometime. And especially try the feathering of the light… working on the edge of the light instead of in the light. You can discover some wonderful looks.

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