Back in January I posted two lighting setups involving only one beauty dish with a grid. You can read them here and here. Last Sunday I used the beauty dish again and mixed it with a snoot to illuminate the background.

I am always surprised how different images can be even when using the same light former. In this setup the beauty dish is above the camera and throws light directly at the model. I have a black background and two black gobos on the left and right to ensure strong shadows and good contrast.

The beauty dish and the grid produce a very focused but smooth light. You can appreciate it on the photo by seeing how nice the model’s skin is even as the light drops strongs shadows.

I use the snoot to make a nice spot on the background. Black backgrounds tend to appear very flat on a photo. If you illuminate them slightly you can create more depth in your photo. There are many ways to illuminate a background and the snoot is one of the simplest yet most effective.

Do you use a beauty dish? Or do you prefer the softbox? Show me some of your lighting setups using a beauty dish. I’d be interested in seeing what other variations are possible!

Let me show you how one same light source can produce two very different pictures just by tweaking things a little. When photographing Laura in late October we produced two series, each with only one beauty dish and a similar setup.

The first lighting produced clean bright pictures. You can see the pictures and setup here. The second setup was similar but produced darker and more intense pictures.

The difference was to simply move the  key light to the left and reduce the power of the light. I also added a black panel in front of my key light to create some shadow. The lens I used in both cases was a rented 100mm 2.8 Canon Macro (an excellent lens for close up portraits!)

Here you have a quick picture of my studio just after we produced the photo.

And here you have the exact lighting setup

My previous post contained a behind the scenes video of a photo session I did for a friend’s event models agency. He wanted me to photograph 15 of his girls in a uniform way, so that he could use the pictures for his website and printed material. All pictures had to look the same to be consistent.

We looked at the options and settled for a simple yet professional lighting scheme which works well photographing women. The lighting setup I describe below makes them look young and dynamic, and the photos are nice. For some of the girls we also used a wind machine.

I also made sure they had a good time, had some drinks, smiled a lot and enjoyed the experience, as you see in the session video. Some of them had never been photographed before! Here is a quick selection. You can see the rest at hostessenpool.de.

The Lighting Setup

The key light comes from a strobe above the camera equiped with a grid. It gives a strong light and focuses on the face and upper body of the model. The remaining lights (hair light and strip lights on the back) are there to create highlights around their bodies, emphasizing curves. The gobos create shadows to improve contrast and accentuate the highlights.

Give the lighting setup a try and don’t forget to show me the results!

For my photosession with Laura back in October, I chose a simple lighting setup which is common for beauty productions. The trick for such productions is to have a very good looking model with a great skin and a good attitude: Laura matched all the requirements.

Here the lighting setup. It consists of placing a Profoto beauty dish with a grid slightly above the model, not too high. The black gobo on the left adds some shadow to the right part of her face giving the picture more structure and dimension. Without the gobo the picture would look too flat.

Do you use a beauty dish? Do you have any samples?

P.S: Here is an update after reading Oscar’s comment. I do not use a light meter, instead I use the histogram on my camera to ensure that I am not loosing any details on the photo. Here you have more information about the picture. Hope it helps.

Olivia is a model which fits really well in colorful and lively images. As a pretty blonde girl its easy to make her look like a barbie doll. You have to get the lighting right or else you won’t bring out all the energy on the image.

For my shooting I used the ring flash as the main lighting source. If used properly you can really get a three dimensional image. You can see the lighting setup on the diagram below as well as a raw picture of the studio while we were working.

The Ring Flash is the key light but I had a big octobox behind me to fill up. I don’t like having the Ring Flash on it’s own because it creates strong shadows around the model. With the octobox behind me I can reduce these considerably while keeping the “Ring Flash look”.  The hair light and the two strip boxes left and right are there to seperate the model from the backdrop creating highlights around her.

With some smart post-processing, more color and contrast, here is the final result!

Have you ever used 5 light sources? Any links to share? Are you a Ring Flash fan? Or do you avoid it?

PS: By the way, I already got my Christmas present ready for you. Wait until the 25th!

Studio photography always has the additional challenge of making you think what to do with the background. Putting a model in front of a plain monochromatic backdrop can produce really nice pictures, but if you work a lot in your studio, after a while you might want more variety.

If you look at studio photos, you will see that some pictures work very well with a monochromatic backdrop. If you have a well styled model conveying a strong message, then you can really get strong results with a low-profile simple background.

Recently, however, I have started looking at ways to make backgrounds more interesting. I have seen photographers use various tricks:

• using less conventional backgrounds: patterned backgrounds, textured backgrounds, backgrounds which reflect light back to the camera in interesting ways…
• adding props to the set: boxes, walls, cloths, plants, etc…
• lighting the background in more creative ways: using highlights or shadows

The third option was the one I tested in my photo session with Giada. I wanted to create shadows on a gray monochromatic backdrop. Here follows the resulting picture and the lighting setup.

The model has been placed close to the backdrop to create the strong shadows. I used one light source reflector with a grid pointed at the model from above the camera and at a distance. Enjoy!

I’ve been following Studioxil‘s very informative lighting diagrams for a while and after having been asked a few times to describe my lighting, I decided to follow a similar approach and use Kevin Ketz‘s Lighting Diagrams to illustrate my setups. His tools are useful for communicating with others, or even just to document your own shootings for personal use.

Here the setup for my shooting with Mandy on the 28th of June. You already saw the behind the scenes video on my previous post. Here the technical details. Enjoy…!

It is not always easy to find websites or blogs where you can read about the production of good photography. I was quite happy when I came across the following blog the other day and read how the photographer gave a detailed insight into the production of very nice images. Definitely worth taking a look!

http://www.studioxil.com/

And for those of you who like sharing, here is a blog where anybody can upload their light tests. You will be surprised by the high profile pictures there.  A good source for inspiration and for learning.

This post is a bit off topic, but hopefully interesting nonetheless. While I was in New York I brought my camera and spent one evening taking night pictures, generating some extra content for the stock agencies. Here is one pic I took of Brooklyn Bridge. It’s not difficult to take nice night pictures in New York. Just find a good spot, set your tripod and take a few shots until you find the right exposure.

I shot this one at F3,5 with 1,3 seconds exposure @ISO200. I tried different combinations but this one ended up pleasing me the most.

This is what the picture looked like before I post-processed it in Photoshop. You will notice straight away that I played around with colored filters to give it the blue look. It was fairly simple, and if you experiment with Color Balance, Selective Color and Curves you should achieve similar results

And for the really curious, here is me taking the picture

As a follow up to my post on ring lights, here you have some more interesting resources on the topic.

Here is a video from famed photographer Jill Greenberg. She uses the ring light too and you even see a scene in this video where she is using it while photographing a bear.

Here you see David LaChapelle at work. He also uses ring flashes in some of his pictures. At about minute 3:30 you will see him working with one