I thought I would break down another shot I did that involved pre-visualization, overcoming a challenge and using small lights for a big light look.

The shot was for a dance Calendar for Briana. In the calendar images she presents 12 different types and styles of dance. for the last shot I wanted to harken back to the film “Flashdance” for a water/splash fun shot.

Before we get going, I would like to remind everyone that the workshops in Omaha, NE and Missoula, MT are still open, but down to only one shooter each. We are so pleased to be able to bring the workshop to some of these smaller markets. If you are thinking about attending a workshop this summer, take a look at the Omaha, Nebraska, Chicago, El Paso, Memphis and Minnesota dates. More to come, so stay tuned.

Here are a few other posts you may enjoy:
Shooting on the Beach with Two Speedlights and the Sun
Deconstruction: Briana on the Pier (Speedlights and the Sun)
Tech Sheet: Beating the Sun with Speedlights
Tech Sheet: Creating an Ambient Look with Speedlights on Location

Also to remind you all that to check out the Essentials page. We have added full-featured websites to our offering as well as some very cool WordPress themes expressly designed for photographers.

So let’s go on and take a look at the steps we took to do the fun “Flashdance” shot for Briana’s Calendar.

We tried to set it up with a black background, but there seemed to be this wind

Well, it seemed like a perfect day to set up the seamless outside so we could do the water shot. As soon as we set the paper up, a small breeze started rustling the trees – and totally destroying the seamless. We tried to get it right for a few minutes, but the falling sun meant we had to change gears really quick.

I wanted a dark background, and the seamless seemed to be the best way. I knew there would be some Photoshop work needed, but I wanted to minimalize it as far as the background.

But the wind had other ideas. I turned around and realized that with shutterspeed and some blending in Photoshop, I could get this right, and knew I had only a few minutes to go until the sun got too low to make the shot. We had no time left to do this again (schedules for three busy people) so we wanted to at least say we gave it a heck of a try.

GEAR: we had three speedlights with fresh batteries, Cybersyncs tested and ready, camera – cleaned and with fresh flash card, three stands, a boom and all the clamps and bungees and stuff we could need. We had it with us… at the ready. We got to work on the shot and the challenge at hand.

Lorri had Briana in makeup and we decided to use the shadow side of the building for the background. I figured if I couldn’t save that black background in Photoshop, I would have to find another shot to use for the last month. “Let’s just give it a shot” was the group response.

Setting the chair up in the sun, we added a speedlight on a stand behind her and dialed it in to match the sunlight. I had an exposure of f-5.6 at 1/125 at ISO 100. That was perfect for what I wanted. I knew the edges of the water would have some motion blur from the ambient, and would also be frozen due to the strobe. But it would also not last too long.

“Briana… we have some good news and some bad news. Good news: We have a water source. Bad news: It isn’t heated.”

Briana: “Grrrrrrrrr…. brrrrrrrrrr”

Filling the buckets as fast as we could we knew that we could only get about 10-15 shots before the light went too far down and killed the light on her face.

I took a few shots of her in position to make sure I really thought I could do this… Looked pretty good.

We added a backlight coming straight to the camera in order to backlight the water as it hit Briana

You can see how we added a second light to the back of the shot. Aimed straight at the camera, the light would backlight the water and create a bright background, almost specular, as the water splashed around her.

We tried the shot many times. Briana was a trooper and Lorri and James Alan would fill the buckets as fast as possible and we would count 1-2-3 and “splash”. I was not shooting tethered on this shot due to the amazing amount of water everywhere, so I would be checking out the image with a loupe as the gang was loading the buckets and Briana was shivering.

As you can see… we had to do it several times to get the angle, amount and thrust of the water just right.

Well... we tried to get it right, but that required practice. That's our story and we are sticking to it...

We definitely wore her out, so as soon as I got one that I knew would work, Lorri wrapped her in a warm towel and we took her inside to warm up.

I now had a shot I could work with.

Moving it into Photoshop, I first added a black background to the layers and started to blend back with a mask. Then adding the layer again with the blend mode to “Multiply” I could then blend back the dancer against the dark, black background. It took some careful masking and blending, but it was doable.

Highlight painting is also used here to add some contrast to those areas that seemed a little flat. Increased contrast was added with Tony Kuyper’s Luminance masks and the entire image was warmed a bit for a more natural feel.

I then added a little spray from one area to another area to make the splash seem like it was coming from behind her. Carefully cutting and blending, I cloned the spray from the front of her legs to the place behind her back. You can see the added areas here:

After the background was blended out, I was able to add some additional water to the areas that needed it.

And that was it. Planning the shot was so important, and being able to switch gears when the weather turned windy allowed us to switch course and still get the shot. I was able to get that shot with the quickly lowering light by not focusing on what was going wrong, but focusing instead on how to get it right.

Here is the final image as it appeared in the Calendar… which you can still buy, by the way. Visit Briana’s site for a link to the purchase page.

Final image as it was used.

Special thanks to Briana, Lorri and James for their help in this image.

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Mexico was an absolute blast this year. We had about 14 models who were there for the “Girls of Rocky Point” calendar shoot. Weather was amazing, and the resort made us feel right at home. I had a chance to shoot a couple of shots with the guys and decided to share a few with you all.

We still have some room at the Cleveland workshop, and the June workshops have some space as well. Come on out and enjoy a really intense, incredibly fun and real-time-hand-on-see-do-learn workshop. Your photography will improve by several times no matter what your level.

Special thanks BTW to my wonderful sponsors BorrowLenses.com, SmugMugPro and the Las Palmas Resort in Rocky Point Mexico. All the attendees to any workshop will receive a 10% discount for any vacation rental at that incredible place. Don’t let the media hype scare you off… it is a pretty incredible place and easy and safe to get to.

I also should publicly thank my friends Megan, James, Jerry, JimmyV, Evan, Alex and Jesse for coming down and working with us. Some were there only to shoot the calendar, but spent time shooting with the guys and having an all out great time. Special kudos to Jesika (who came all the way from Houston for this workshop) and Christine and Laura, from Phoenix. They came with the calendar but spent a heck of a lot of time with the workshop guys and that was wonderful.

Well, let’s look at this first image. It is one I did on Sunday and features Laura. I rarely get to shoot at the workshops, but the guys were all shooting some shots of the calendar models and I had a moment to set something up. Dan helped Jerry and I make this shot. We used a Dynalite 400WS Monobloc with a Vagabond for power. Light modifier is a 22″ beauty dish and it was on a stand that we improvised into a boom for the carbon-based-voice-activated light stands.

I loved the little ledge with the water behind and wanted to feature the graphical nature of the shot. Laura had this incredible green scarf thing that was driving her crazy in the wind. I liked that too… so the shot was hatched.

Laura on the wall with the green scarf blowing. All was set except the light. It was coming at Laura at a nearly oblique angle and barring her looking right at the sun, there was no light on her front at all. I wanted to have light filling her face and form. I knew a reflector wasn’t going to be enough so that left only the strobe alternative.

I chose a wide angle Canon 20-35MM zoom so I could grab a lot of the location behind her and make the shot have a feeling of ‘place’ to it. A tripod was next and since mine was all the way back at the casita, I just grabbed Jesse’s video tripod and made it work.

How to shoot this shot with the strobe in it was an easy decision. It was obvious that I could shoot the light in the shot and simply take it out with drag and drop ease. Simply by shooting the image without the light in it provided the right hand side of the shot with no light. Easy to cut, drag and drop that right side onto the shot with the light and be done with it.

Well… it was a little more complex than that… but not much.

Here is the shot with the light in it:

As soon as I was finished with the shots, I had Jerry take the light out and I shot one frame with Laura in place and no lighting gear. This is the shot I used for the right side of the image. There would be a few things to deal with in the post work, but it would be rather easy. One thing that made it easier was shooting on a tripod. It gave me a set of images that matched and that is what I needed.

I had to fix the horizon a bit, and then carefully made a cut on the lightless shot and moved it over to the shot with the light in it. A little finessing and it slipped right in. I then had to do a little shadow repair on the grass, remove the flashmeter that was inadvertently left in the shot and make sure that the sky had no line in it. I also had to take out the corner of the lightless shot that had a little light in it as well as that creepy thing that got on my sensor sometime Sunday morning. Hmmm… if that sucker is a flu virus I am gonna be soooo mad.

The final shot was then worked with luminance masks and sharpened. And that was it.

I visualized the shot and then made it happen… that is the way to do it as far as I am concerned.

I wasn’t done yet though… I had another shot to do, and it was done the same way.

Above is the contact sheet with the images I shot of Jazmin on the zero edge pool. I did the final shot much the same way. Below is the shot without Jerry holding the light. I have the notes I made on it as well.

Here is the shot with the Photoshop tweaks and the added contrast and saturation. I also used some masks to bring out the contrast in certain image luminance ranges, and added a touch of grain to rough it up a bit.

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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.

We hope you are enjoying Lighting Essentials, and tell your friends. You can sign up for an RSS feed to stay on top of our posts. See top right of the home page. Also, if you like the posts, add them to the social networks you like by clicking the “Save/Share” link at the bottom of this post.

See ya next time.

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I have been working on a personal project, shooting some of the old mining towns in Eastern/Central Arizona. Sometimes I shoot natural light and sometimes I like to pull out my speedlights for a little drama.

Let’s take a look at some easy ways to add a sense of lighting drama with a single speedlight. I use a 430EZ on a tethered hotshoe cord. I could use wireless remotes, and sometimes do, but the tether keeps me working within a set of limits that I like for this kind of shoot.

The tether means it fires every time, and there isn’t a bunch of things hanging off of the strobe or extending it. Anyway, if it wasn’t actually attached to my camera I would probably lose it.

We are shooting the towns of Superior, Miami and Hayden which are just east of Phoenix about an hour or so. They are very damaged towns, and I want to document where they are, because I really don’t know if they will make it or not.

We are working on Friday’s tech sheet now, and it will be really cool so check back.

Now, on to some fun, and easy ways to use your flash to pop the natural landscape and make some cool shots. If you want to try some shots like this, all you need is a camera and a flash that can be fired off camera… not on the hotshoe, but from another place. I handhold mine a lot.

For the shot below I used a home made Beauty Dish. You can see it in action on the video here. It is made from an IKEA light fixture and I compliment my friend Megan for making it for me. I have adjusted it a little, but it is her basic design.

With a 430 stuck in the back of it, I can get pretty good up-close flash power. I think it takes about a stop and a half off the light, so I do have to crank it up a notch. On the other hand, I am using it on a tethered Canon cable from hot shoe to flash. This is a totally manual configuration as the strobe is not a digital era strobe. Still connects for manual though and that is all I need.

What I love about this light is in close the highlights are glossy, smooth and the fall off is quick and edgy. This cactus was standing in the bright overcast day, so I decided to underexpose the background with shutter speed and let the flash ‘feature’ the thorns and lines of the cactus.

Shutter speed is the controlling factor for the daylight when you are shooting outside. I use some basic knowledge of the light (f16 rule in bright sun, dropping a stop and a half under overcast) and the basic knowledge of what the strobe is giving at the settings I use. I know that the beauty dish at about 18″ at 1/8 power is going to give me around f16… so I can make quick, knowledgeable decisions on the run… without necessarily pulling out my trusty Minolta meter. This cactus is in ‘downtown’ superior.

Jerry and I were hiking around Miami when I spotted this stick leaning up against the wall. I thought there may be an image there… stairs are red, sign is sort of strange out in that environment, light is bouncing back on the stairs, and the patina of the wall was pretty cool. I took a few natural light images and they looked… well, boring.

I decided to add a little wink of flash coming from the opposite side of the sun to add some drama to the scene. Setting the flash on 1/32. I aimed it high and down on the side of the cactus. I kept the shutterspeed/f-stop at the correct point to expose the sunlit side correctly, but adding that little wink of light, the highlight on the stick and the shadow going opposite of the light to the left side of the image made the shot work for me.

This prickly pear cactus was outside an old, run down building in the business district of Miami, Arizona. The sun was coming from camera left a little over my shoulder and casting a lot of shadows. The natural light shot looked like a cactus in the bright sun. Not much drama.

I knew if I could use the spires of the tall trees, the dramatic sky and the three Prickly Pears, I may get something more than a cactus shot. Taking the strobe to 1/16 power, it is literally about 16″ inches over my head. At the exposure I used, it matches the sun for power… but I quickened the shutter speed a stop and that gave me the dramatic dark sky and mysterious spires. I couldn’t really see through the camera lens as it is buried deep in the cactus, but a few ‘chimps’ and I kinda knew where to place the lens. I am using a bare Canon 430 here.

Shooting at 1/16, 1/32 power is great as well… it is plenty of power, I only have about 28″ of reach with that tether, so it keeps me close. And the flash recycles very, very quickly.

The Agave plants were at the edge of a parking lot in Hayden, Arizona. I looked at the dramatic sky and all those power lines and knew I had a shot. The sun was coming from camera left, slightly backlighting the Agave and the interesting shapes. Lots of wacky shadows made the shot not work… I decided to bring out the beauty dish and get it in close.

I placed the beauty dish right over the top of the Agave and brought it in close. Putting the camera into the cactus and aiming up, I was able to compose after a shot or two. Then it was a matter of moving the beauty dish around to try and get some interesting shadows, and smooth light on the spires. Agave are very accommodating to photographers I have found.

One of the most important things you can practice is knowing your f-stop / shutter speed correlations and be able to do them quickly in your head. For instance, I knew that 1/100 at f-16 would be the natural light shot, so changing the shutter speed to 1/160 would darken the sky about a 2/3 stop. The sun shining on the lamp would be slightly darker, but it would still be very bright compared to the slightly underexposed background… still at f-16. The strobe isn’t controlled by the shutter speed, and I brought it in to the distance to give me f-16. The strobe lit side is slightly brighter than the sun lit side, and that is what makes the image have some drama.

Our last shot is of a lamp post in Miami, Arizona. the sun was over my right shoulder and it simply had a side lit shot going on the lamp. I have shot these lamps for about two dozen years, so nothing new there.

I did notice how the light was bright on one side of the wash below and dark on the right side. Deciding to bring in the bare Canon 430 to the shadow side gave the lamp a kind of ethereal light. It took only a single shot to chimp it in and I took vertical and horizontals of it.

For these shots I used a Canon 400D with a kit lens. My beloved 20-35MML is still in the shop. I am not crazy about this kit lens, but it doesn’t totally suck at the wide angle setting.

Take a strobe with you next time you go for a walk. And use to the side, from above, and from any angle you can, to create something that wasn’t seen before.

Thanks for dropping by Lighting Essentials. A Place for Photographers. And if you are interested in doing a Lighting Essentials Workshop, check out the workshop page here: Learn to Light

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A simple product shot can sometimes present a lot of challenges for the photographer not used to thinking about reflected specular lighting. In this shot, the product is practically lit with specular reflection. There is very little direct light on the Hard Drive case, rather we have built an environment where the unit is simply reflecting all that surrounds it with our control to make it look fantastic.

This is our newest Tech Sheet and it is three pages long. I have put it into a PDF for printing and working with. I hope anyone who would like to work on something like this shot finds it helpful.

You will need a scrim and boom for your speedlight or a softbox for your strobe. I used a strip light of 48 x 18, but you can use a smaller one for similar results. Four small sheets of fome core will also be of use, minimum 24 x 18 or a little larger. I find that stands, clamps, and booms come in to great use when working with the finesse that a shot like this requires. A second light for the background can be added for more interest.

You should have at least 4 feet behind your product so that the spray light can be used without having it bleed back on the product.

Before we jump on over, I am glad to announce that the workshops for the first part of next year are being set up now. You can see the list here. If you are thinking about hosting one, let me know as soon as possible so we can get it set up. There is also a new post at LE Magazine on Shooting For Free, a subject that David Hobby mentioned recently in a blog post and got a lot of people talking pro and con. My take here.

Let’s look at the item itself. It has a brushed aluminum front panel that is a full curve facing camera, an aluminum base and a flat side panel with etched logo. Download printable Tech Sheet here (PDF).

Our Tech Sheet this week is three pages in PDF form.

Download Here

We of course want to see all of that, and that means lighting control. You will see the well rounded front panel, an side panel that needs to be evenly lit and the etched logo that should be visible in our final shot. I want a cleanly let front panel, some edge lights for drama and separation and the unit should look like it is important… and worth the hundred bucks or so it would cost.

While this is a fairly easy shot to do, it does require careful placement of light and fill/reflector cards to provide smooth, even light that has dimension to it. We want to see the curves as they are one of the defining elements of this design, and curves mean a wide reaching reflection.

Placement in the frame is also very important and we want to make the item the “hero” of this ad or
catalog shot. One way to do that is to shoot slightly “up” at the item creating a “towering” presence. It is also important in this shot that we don’t show the table that it is sitting on as that would make it more mundane and it would appear as a hard drive sitting on a table… boring.

Below you can see how important the placement of the overhead light is. We want it to be subtle and not overpowering in the final shot. We will be using the natural reflectiveness of the item to build the light around.

Here are some shots of the vertical alignment of the light. The camera aimed at an oblique angle to the table and the hard drive sitting at a slight angle in order to show depth. I am using a wide angle lens here to help create a little drama in the shot. In the end, though, I was zoomed out a bit as the wide angle was too much.

You can see the basic setup. We have a large fill card in front of the unit and right up next to the camera lens. The cards you see on the table are creating the highlights on the sides of the unit. They are angled to slightly catch the light from the strip light above and become bright enough to be reflected by the units curves and materials right back into the lens… soft, wide, liquid specular highlights.

Putting a fill card angled to reflect light back to the side of the unit added a clean wide specular down the side, also showing the logo as an embossed highlight. That was easy.

We added a “spray” light to the background by placing a head with a small parabolic reflector directly opposite the lens and right against the wall… in this case it is only about 4” from the wall. I stand and sight the lens to see the light.

This spray can be controlled by moving it closer to the wall, changing the power settings or putting some type of diffusion over the head.

I tried some long exposures to find the one that would let the light of the unit shine and we went with that exposure for shutterspeed, and the flash exposure for f-stop. In this shot it was f-11 at ISO 100 at 1 second. The 1 second exposure was for the light to burn in… sometimes called dragging the shutter.

Final setup shows the added fill card on camera right. It took the dark area to the right of the previous image front plate and cancelled it out with a soft reflected highlight that really offset the bright highlight on the rim of the front plate. Looking carefully at the shots below you can see the differences.

We decided a blue gel would nicely set off the blue light inside the unit so a double set of blue gels were added to the front of the spray light and clamped in place. The modeling light was then turned off to prevent heat build up in the reflector.

The back light was tuned a bit by moving it in and away from the wall. I checked how it looked by shooting without the top light on. That gave me a silhouette against the background. Once I got it in the correct final position I made sure the unit was clean and made my exposures, bracketing by third stops. I always shoot in RAW by the way.

On the Tech Sheet you will find some information on the Photoshop work we did.

I hope you enjoyed this high tech product shot using only one light for the product itself. Here is one last shot of the product as it was finished.

Download printable Tech Sheet here (PDF).

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A direct contrast to the previous image with two strobes and lots of drama, this shot of Christina is simple and direct and with a more natural feel to it. Shot in Miami, Arizona, I wanted this shot to be very naturally lit and with a great natural feel to it.

Before we start, I want to mention that we have a new interview at Lighting Essentials Magazine. Joshua Targownik tells us how he is getting his studio up and running in LA. Briana has started answering questions about models and working with and for photographers and you can find her Q&A here. We are also heading to Houston, Philadelphia and Cleveland soon, so check out the workshop pages.

We have just completed our Detroit workshop and it was amazing. Fantastic people and the weather really was quite nice, especially for Bri and I after the heat of this summer here in Phoenix. Being a little chilly at night and in the morning was simply cool… heh. You can always see what the students are doing by using the tag – lightingessentialsworkshop – in Flickr.

So on to the image we are going to deconstruct.

Miami is in the mountains east of Phoenix and on these fall days it runs about 10-12 degrees cooler. I had been wanting to do a roadtrip to get back to shooting more natural light work. Megan accompanied me and she shot with a lot of strobes while I did similar images with either natural light or strobe accent. It was a ton of fun.

Christina is across the street from me and I am shooting on a long lens (80-200MM 2.8L) and I am shooting wide open to limit the depth of field. The light is bouncing all over the street at this point and the sun is slightly behind her in position. She is in a little glade of trees and I wanted that color and the ‘dappled’ look to the field behind her.

The strobe is placed well behind her and dialed way down to 1/32 I believe (it was Megan’s SB back there) and I remember we were shooting with very little strobe power. You can see from this image that it added just a little wink of highlight and rim lighting to make her stand out. I really like using a little light to separate the subject and this is a good example. We can make the light look like it is a little bit of sunlight at the back if we make sure the angle of the light is the same, or nearly the same, as the angle of the sun that is in the background. Changing that angle can still produce a cool shot, but it may not look like the sun because of the cross shadows.

Here is a diagram.

You can see how simple it is to do clean shots like this, so take a subject, a single strobe and a camera and look for some nice areas that have some natural bounce light coming into a darker area. Add the strobe light gently so as to make the image a subtle and natural portrait.

I turned the wireless off and took a second shot to see how nice the natural light was. I like them both.

Thanks for visiting Lighting Essentials. We hope to see you soon at a workshop or drop me an email if there is something you would like us to cover.

–don

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I know, I know… late for the update on speedlights. I apologize a thousand times. Been unimaginably busy, and things have drifted. Bermuda workshop was so intense there was no time left for much other than sleeping (and a little dancing to reggae on the beach… but, I digress.) NOTE: This is part two of the Speedlight series: Part one is here.

This week we are going to look at using one speedlight with no modifications… no umbrellas or softboxes to modify the light, just the bare strobe. This can sometimes seem like pretty harsh light, but there ways to use the single light that can create a very modern, clean and sometimes become almost not noticeable.

We will take a look at a group of images that use only one strobe, in different ways. I want you to try some of these shots when you get a chance. I use a stand or a human boom (assistant) to position the light, and it is very important that it is positioned perfectly.

Images discussed in this article

The line from the camera to the subject is called the axis. It is one third of the triangle caused by the placement of the light, the subject and the camera. The wider that triangle, the more shadow is caused from the light across the subject. Keeping the light on axis of the camera can create less angular shadows. Keeping it on axis of the subject can create less angular shadows as well, especially the nose and chin area. You will have to make the determination on how that works for you as you are shooting.

First up is Megan in Seattle. I had her sitting on a small table near the water in Pike Market. The sun was about an hour from sunset so it is kind of low on the horizon, but not a ‘setting sun’ by any means.

For this shot I used a speedlight in close and at lower power for faster recycle. It also creates a kind of spotlight look that I like a lot as the proximity of the flash and the subject are so close that the light doesn’t have the distance to ‘spread’ and cover more subject.

Notice the small shadow on her nose and the direction of the shadow under her chin. This is a direct affect of the position of the strobe. In this case, I was making sure the angle of the light and her face were as close to ‘axis’ as possible… even moving the light as she moved to maintain that angle. The strobe is slightly off to the camera right by a few inches and we still get that shadow. (It doesn’t bother me, and the ‘hot’ effect is exactly what I wanted… a dramatic hard light that adds a bit of drama.)

In this contact sheet you can see how keeping the light in context with the angle of her face mitigates the shadows that may be caused if the light remained stationary.

If the light had been stationary to any angle, the shadows would have grown and diminished as she moved her head. I kept the light right into her face from a very slight angle wherever she moved. This mitigated long nose shadows and chin shadows that could have been distracting.

Below are a couple of shots I recently did of Trikita in Bermuda. I wanted the red dress to stand out and her pose to be almost statuesque.

Using the natural light as ambient fill, I wanted the speedlight to seem like an un-natural light source… a shining beam of light that was totally at odds with the surroundings. The sun is high overhead, and slightly… very slightly behind Trikita to the camera left of her. You can see the sun causing a hot spot on her elbow on the left shot, on the right shot you can see how it is lighting up the old fort walls around her. The light is without shape at noon, simply falling straight down on the landscape.

Using a single speedlight, I went from the opposite side of the sun and kept the axis of the light straight into her face. This was an effort to keep the face and dress well lit and not cause any more shadows than necessary on her face, but allow the light to shape and augment the dress’ shape and design.

Keeping it to one added source I allowed the light to ‘fall off’ as it went down her dress. This light to dark gradation adds some interest to the image as well. It plays well off of the underexposed, rather flat, ambient light.

For this shot I underexposed the background 1.5stops. The ambient exposure was f16 at 1/125 so I moved the aperture to f-22 (1 stop darker than the metered light) and moved my shutter speed to 1/200 (2/3 less exposure from ambient – close enough for me to call it 1/2). Then I moved my flash into the range to give me f-22. In this case it was about 6 feet from her at 1/2 power, zoomed to 50mm. The shot setting of f-22 @ 1/200 resulted in good exposure for the flash lit area and a 1.5 underexposed ambient area.

The next image is one I like a lot. Briana on a deserted dirt road in Prescott. I loved the setting sun and the moon was an extra special catch.

I used the flash as an on-axis fill for this shot. You can catch the slight shadows from her legs going back from the camera. This cross shadow effect is kinda fun, and the light is doing a great job of showing her form and expression. With the sun as the only light source, I would have had shadows from her nose, chin, cheeks and even hair. I didn’t want any extraneous shadows on her, so I elected to fill in from camera axis to eliminate the shadows that were caused from the sun.

I used a 550EX at perfect balance to the setting sun. This allows the sun to be my right side light, and the strobe gives me the main. Briana is well lit without difficult shadows. The 550 is being held in my right hand and is as high as I could get it, and very slightly to camera right axis to give the light a tiny bit of ‘shape’.

Otero, the Bermuda model that can jump over the moon if asked, did this shot with me during the workshop. I wanted to do something with all the models so I had the two ladies stand in the surf and asked Otero to do one of his martial arts jumps for me. I had one of the workshop attendees hold the flash and I had Otero jump on ‘three’.

This shot uses the sun as the main light, and adds the strobe to open the shadows and add some pop to Otero… especially in the shadows as he crunches up.

Sun was f-16 at 1/125 at ISO 200, so I made the strobe equal that by putting it on 1/2 power and metering in the spot where f-16 would occur. That is the precise spot I wanted Otero to jump in. By making the strobe equal in power to the sun, I opened the shadows and ‘popped’ the colors of his clothes and skin. You will notice that the models and the ambient surroundings are also lit correctly. Using the flash at equal power does not mean that it will ‘overpower’ the sun.

My human-boom assistant was very careful to consistently aim the flash at Otero’s face, not watching me… but the talent. The two models were directed to the look of distraction and the light fell on them well because I turned their faces away from the harsh light of the day. Without turned heads, shadowed eyesockets and under nose would have killed the shot.

The wind was crazy on the mountains outside of Palm Springs when I made this shot of Briana. I wanted to include the windmills and the strange landscape. But I wanted Briana to dominate the shot. How better to do it than use a speedlight to light her from a different angle than the sun, and underexpose the sunlight a little as well, deadening the color.

The light was heavy overcast, so it was flat and uninteresting. I didn’t want the light I provided to be flat as well, so I decided on a sidelight look. Holding the light at about 30 degrees to camera left, I was able to create the look of light from a direction, instead of from above. the slightly zoomed nature of the light created that pool of light that I like and the exposure was created to be one stop over ambient. That means that the ambient exposure (f-8 at 1/125 was allowed to be one stop under exposed by shooting the flash at f-11 (at 1/125) at ISO 100. The flash exposure of f-11 renders the f-8 exposure as one stop underexposed. This makes Briana ‘pop’ from the background and really shows off the colors of her dress.

The light is a Canon 430 on a collapsed stand that I am holding like a boom on my left hip. I wanted the light to come down instead of across at her. The light is close and slightly out of camera range to camera left. It is set to 1/8 power for fast recycle and the overcast day made that plenty of light. The strobe is zoomed to 50mm for a slightly narrow throw.

Notice how the angle of the strobe doesn’t show harsh shadows on Briana’s face. I was carefully watching the angles of her face and following it with the strobe on the stand on my hip. Takes a little doing, but it can certainly be done.

Our last shot is Megan, a friend of mine who is also a photographer and a doctor.

I wanted the feeling of light coming both ways on her as it pertains to the kind of doctoring she does. The sun was very low and it came through the dead plants with such warmth that I wanted to keep that look to the image as well. The light is a single 430EZ on a stand to camera right, slightly above Megan’s head and slightly tilted down. Zoom is all the way wide to give maximum coverage. I metered the ambient and set the strobe to match it. In other words, the strobe is giving the same light towards Megan as the exposure would be from the sun on her back.

Notice again how having Megan’s face turned ‘toward’ the light gave less shadows on the face and added to the overall feeling of softer light.

I will add a few more to this post as the week progresses, so check back again.

Thanks for visiting Lighting Essentials, a place for photographers.

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In keeping with this months major tutorial on using speedlights to their maximum, I thought I would take apart a shot that Briana and I did in Florida during a terrific thunderstorm.

We were hot and it was very humid, but we decided to make the best of the down time by making a shot or two. We did actually make three different shots, but I am going to show you this pool shot as an example of how knowing your flash units can make a setup fast.

(Before we get going, I did want to announce three new workshop dates: Atlanta, Winston/Salem and Kansas City. They are coming up this fall. Check the Workshop Page for more information.)

I put this light together in about 10 minutes including the conception of it. I wanted to get a feel of the room as well as the ambient of the outside to make the shot look more ‘natural.’ This was a little tricky as all my modifiers – umbrellas and such – were packed for the trip home.

The shot takes place in a small cabana during a rainstorm. The girl is there to play… she isn’t there to be coddled. She has an attitude of power and a relaxed, but slightly arrogant demeanor. She is self assured and is ready to get to the game… Such is the types of stories that I run in my head as I set the shots up. I share them with the models as well, giving them some insight to where my head is on the creation of the shot.

There is a storm and rain outside and I wanted it to be part of the shot. The light outside wasn’t strong enough for a good backlight in this very dark room, so I used a ‘rim’ light to increase the light from behind, but at an angle to make it seem like it was ‘wrapping’ around her a little bit. The accent light was for fun and drama. It was a variable I would play around with as the shot progressed.

I used three strobes for the shot: A main from slightly off axis of camera right, a rim light for a feeling of separation, and an accent light to mitigate the shadow thrown from the main light. The accent light also adds a bit of whimsy to the shot and makes Bri stand out from the surroundings a bit more.

Here is one of the shots:

You can see the strong accent light and how it adds some drama to this shot.

As you note, the accent light is very strong here. I wanted to see how it would look as a ‘mysterious glow’ sort of thing, but not as an overt mystery. More of a light as a tool to break up the otherwise simple shot. I like how it turned out and then moved on to a more subtle use of the accent light.

Notice how the rim light keeps her separated from the background and seems to be part of the overall ambient in the room. You can do so much with very weak light, no need to overpower the scene. I also wanted to keep the ambient in the courtyard as part of the image, so too much flash could have made the image look too artificial. Setting the rim light took the longest, as its position is so critical.

The rim light can’t be too far forward as to throw light on her nose, nor can it be too far back and only offer a back light look. I wanted that light to fall across her chest and under her neck. I didn’t want it on her nose or side of her face. (BTW, this is critical for your model to understand as there may be some constraints on what can and cannot be done in the posing… making sure she doesn’t offer her face too much to that rim light…)

In this next shot, I toned the accent light down a bit by opening the door and getting less of a direct hit from that flash. The unit was already turned down to its lowest setting and had a piece of typing paper over it to cut the light and add a little softness. Changing the angle on the door and slightly on the light made a huge difference.

You can see that the accent light has been toned down, and still offers a nice break behind her.

When working with a model in a situation like this, I like to make up stories for her to think about. Who she is. Who she may be waiting for. Who she is playing against and other ideas for her to form a ‘persona’ who she can explore with posing and attitude and expression. Working with models who can do that can make your creativity soar.

At this point, I knew I had the shot I wanted, so I decided to turn off the accent light and see if that shot worked as well. For this shot I had Bri sit on the edge of the pool table and change the shape of her body in the doorway so there was less door behind her camera right.

I like this image as well. It seems very natural and the rim light now looks as though it is actually part of the ambient light in the courtyard even more.

I turned off the accent light for this shot, and had Briana move into that area.

Important to remember. The axis of camera and main light. If you look at Briana’s face you will see some shadowing at play on the side of her nose and under her lip and chin. This is a natural shadow, but I don’t want it to be very big or show that much. I control that by keeping the angle of the camera and the light very close to each other. The farther the light goes to the side, the more shadow gets thrown and I don’t like that shadow on the face in most instances.

The rim light is coming from slightly behind her and high into the corner. It is designed to make the light that is on her appear as if it is coming in from the ambient outside. It also helps shape and define her as well as separate her from the background. Keep in mind where you want that light to come from when you set it up… and make sure it is in the right position to do what you wanted it to do. If the light had been slightly more to the front of Bri, the light would have looked like a side light – a source – and removed the ‘natural’ look to the image.

Accent lights don’t have to be very powerful at all. A little hint of light here and there and you can create a nice, modulated background for your subject. I love little, weak strobes… they can be so cool with a shot where you only need to light up the bottom half of a door for instance.

Visit us Monday for part two of the Using Small Stobes to Advantage article and a recap of this weeks Seattle workshop.

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Coming in this close can be a nightmare for the unsuspecting. Makeup must be perfect, hair perfect, every nuance of light has to fall to give the feeling of fresh and natural. And the skills in the toolset must be honed very tightly.

It goes without saying that usually a MUA is part of a team doing this work. Some models can do this on themselves, but it is so much better to have eyes that can see the whole picture instead of just a part of it. A great face also helps, as you can imagine.

Alex Bussa is an emerging young talent in Phoenix, Arizona. His work for models is getting increasingly noticed and for this self-assignment he chose a difficult subject… the macro beauty shot. Long a staple of the fashion and beauty industry, the close up beauty shot takes serious lighting control and most often a team. Hair, MU, stylist and more can contribute to creation of perfection on less than a square foot of a woman’s face.

Alex is working closely with me to build his portfolio and we wanted to do something that was unexpected and would really grab a potential client. Alex is not planning on staying in AZ forever and the excitement of NYC is calling more and more each day. We knew he had to introduce some more sophistication to his work and the closeup beauty was a great way of doing it.

For these shots, Alex used a 100MM USM F2.8 Macro lens. It has plenty of sharpness and getting in this close calls for a lens that will at least give you a little distance from the model. It can be un-nerving a bit to have to be so close to your model… mere inches away, but the focal length at least gives you that.

The first shot we see has the melted chocolate. You can see how even the lighting is across the face. The broad, soft light is from a 63 inch satin umbrella with a single 400WS strobe head. It is brought in close to the subject to give a full light to the face and also to help eliminate any possible shadows from the photographer and lens in that close.

The Makeup artist applied some rock candy to the lips in this stunning image:

Now the addition of Powdered Sugar for a more soft look. Notice how smooth the skin is. Lorri Mitchell, the MUA for the shoot took great, painstaking detail in creating a smooth surface on Jasmin’s skin without it looking too ‘cakey’ and over done.

Alex and Lorri added the sugar candy for a colorful break and to add some texture against the smoothness of Jasmine’s skin. Notice how the large satin umbrella gives a luminance to the skin and the candy.

The blue rock candy literally jumps off the page with all that light. This shot literally ‘Rocks’… sorry.

Alex is not using any side fill because the umbrella is so wide it is wrapping the light naturally around her and he didn’t want or need any more reflections in the eyes. With an umbrella like this, lots of things are possible. I love big umbrellas… now so does Alex. You can see how it all comes together in the behind the scenes images above. They were shot by Evan Romine, also a photographer, but assisting Alex for this shoot.

The addition of the fill card below Jazmin delivered a soft surrounding fill to keep the skin “open” and make sure there were no shadows under the chin and hands.

You can see how attentive Lorri is in the images… the slightest alteration can mean lots of time in Photoshop trying to make it better. These images received very little Photoshop beyond normally processing and sharpening.

Alex Bussa Photographer
Lorri Mitchell MUA
Evan Romine Assisting
Jazmin Riley Model

Thanks for visiting Lighting Essentials. More to come.

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Yes… we got free stuff. Who can’t use a great desktop calendar? And when it features a lovely model like Briana, you can’t go wrong.

We have two June, 2008 calendars available in many desktop sizes. I will also give a lighting tutorial for each of the images after the break…

Our first desktop calendar features a beach shot at sunset… actually well after sunset. It was dark.

I took some exposures on auto to see where the light was and it wasn’t much. F-4 at 1/60 was a good starting place. Of course that meant that I didn’t need much light from the speedlights. I lowered the power to 1/16 on both and placed them for some dramatic lighting.

Main light is over my left shoulder and high on her. It is feathered so that it doesn’t throw a deep shadow. The way to do that is to make sure the light is at a distance so that by the time it hits the subject it is already weakening and wont have much carry beyond. While the shadow is there, it isn’t too dark, being filled in from the ambient.

The second light is set at an angle slightly behind Briana to camera right. since it is behind her, it adds no light to her front, simply adding a rim of light around her. This rim light is what gives the image such a two dimensional feel. In fact, it almost looks like a studio shot against a painted background. I knew that may happen, so I made sure Briana dug her feet into the sand so there would be no mistake that it was shot on the beach. I tweaked the light to make it a little more even and then shot the images with a wide angle lens from a low position so that I could keep the horizon low and make her stand against the sky.

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Our second image was taken in the morning after she had been rolling in the sand for a headshot. The light was going in and out of the partly cloudy day and it was high and with a bad angle for a sunlit shot. I moved her into this little opening I had seen the day before and knew it would work to frame her.

I made sure she was in a shady area, and set up one strobe on a stand. I placed it a little over her head at the same angle as the sun and far enough back that it would not be a problem in the shot. After taking a meter of the sun during one of its brief outings, I then made the strobe match that setting. That way if the sun came out on the background she would appear to be sunlit and if it didn’t she would look like she was standing in a pool of sunlight. Win win.

Using a wide angle lens I was able to pick up that cool beach grass and the ocean in the background. I had to watch for beachwalkers, and during this exposure there is a couple in the background hidden by Briana. I love the texture of the sand on her skin, and the way the light seems to fall darker down her legs. It gives an impression of a pool of light.

One speedlight can make such a difference on location shots. However, I try not to make the light look too unreal on a shot like this. Briana came up with this pose as I told her to do something soft and statuesque. Very cool.

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Thanks for visiting and make sure you come back to see what we come up with for July.

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