out of studio battery powered lights in and around uni campus, removing lighting structured control exposing us to the elements
For our first setup outside of the studio, we went to The Steps on campus, a large white painted room with skylights, and wooden stairs/seating. With a lot of light this room was quite bright, sunlight bouncing from the walls.our subject would have been pleasantly lit without spotlights, however to gain more of a say in how we light our muse we are taking control with spotlights
Starting with one spotlight pointed at our muse –
3959 shows a one sided fill light on the left creating strong shadows on one side of our muse, this is creating a contrasting difference between the highlights and shadows
taking test shot we are able to read where our lighting should be
3974
here we retook our lighting test with the removing of one spotlight
3983 using a reflector on the left we bounce back light from the right key light showing a more subtle shadowing
3987 we set up e battery powered lights we used two spot lights to light our muse
3989 Using a two light setup, we asked our muse to be face the camera, using two spotlights we lit our muse from both sides with spot lights, this makes the photo feel balanced but flat as there were no shadows.
3994 Turning our camera to portrait we framed the photo better, as it is more suitable for the approach, we also reduced the light on one side and took a test light reading again to create defining shadows, still keeping two spot lights we set one to be a key light at a higher power and a fill light set at a lower power showing more contour on one side.
4005 With these adjustments made we can see the differences with the fill light compared to balanced lighting.
4011 For this photo we reframed out photos and moved our muse, making sure there were no reflecting lights or glare. The face on portrait shows leading lines using the reflective glass as we can see a glimmer of the lights behind leading down and drawing our eye to the muse making use of the negative space.
moving to our third location we went to a large workshop area with overhead white lights, the contents of this workshop gave a production, tutorial atmosphere as if for a DIY video
lit using a spot light on the right with a reflector on the left, pointed back at our muse to create a balanced photo
using the snood and honeycomb attachment we can dramatically light a key area, drawing attention to this area of the photo
soft box lighting background, snood still pointed at muse using the honey combe attachment
lowering intenisity of soft box lighting, slightly lighting the back making objects pop
increasing intensity of soft box to light the background
by using a softbox on the left and a reflector on the right we can bounce light back at our muse balancing the two lights. the foreground could be lit better to emphasis the color of the rolls
Alex's Photos & Thoughts 