Studio Lighting

Well here we are another week, thought I would share a snipet of wisdom with you. Well thats wrong Me and wisdom in the same sentence. Here we go;

High Key lighting can be tricky, it all depends on what you want to achieve, we get a lot of reqests for lifestyle candid shoots, even when doing lifestyle shoots I always try and get a couple of posed shots especially where kids are involved. That said even life style shoots require direction otherwise they look haphazard and just wrong! Lighting with kids can be very difficult, gone are the days when you take fifteen minutes to set up your lighting for a particular shot, (Well in modern family photography anyway). Your lighting has to be fast, efficient and able to cope with any situation. Fast and able to cope are actually the same thing, it just sounded cool :-) It is no good if you have to alter your lighting because little johnny has gone for a wallk around the set. You want to be able to continue shooting from any angle without worrying too much. This is the holy grail of modern family photography, how to achieve this. By efficient I mean that the lighting needs to provide adequate light, you don't want to burn out your subject if they move closer to you, and like wise you don't want to underexpose should they have moved too far back. Up until recently I have used four lights for high key work, two background lights, and effectively two key lights. The two light system is something that has been used for glamour models for ages, it provides a nice even light and can be quite punchy if done properly. The problem you get is that if you are stuck for space it can be a difficult one to pull off, if your subjects hits the floor crawling you find yourself adjusting to compensate, then they stand up and off you go again.

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine Sheila from Dove Photography (Check out her website) came to the studio with her family to do a few shots, wile we were having a break she mentioned Venture photography (A large franchise photography studio with studios all around the country). Being a photographer you are alway curious about the work arounds of other studios, so we chatted about their lighting system. Just as Venture do we shoot into a corner, I have produced something of an infinity cove, Sheila said they reflected the light of the corner walls and this provided soft light. I was intrigued and a little annoyed I had spent the last two years finding ways to cut the over spill of this light back onto my subject. Here they were using that spill light as a key light of sorts. So it was that the following Monday I had a play with the lights and hey presto, we have a lighting solution that is fast, efficient and able to cope with any situation. I actually use three lights, I have two 600's bouncing off the highly reflective walls, which have a dual purpose they light up the background but also provide a great soft lighting solution to my subject. I also have a 300 shooting onto a reflector to the rear and high up so that the light bounces back into the area. It means that I can shoot from anywhere around the studio at any angle and the light is pretty good (Even) The shots below are examples of the new lighting, the first one is with my subject in the middle of the studio floor, the second one I have not cropped, so you can clearly see that the little tyke is heading off the edge of the studio floor, even so this side on shot is very well illuminated. I will go through the shots and see if there are any other clear examples of various angles correctly lit. Once the lighting had been set up I could concentrate on taking the shots, not once did I have to adjust anything.