1st Light, 2nd Light, Focus… Boom!

In the third episode of In Search for Style I would like to introduce you to some simple off-camera flash techniques I’m using. Those of you who are new to photography are probably wondering how am I achieving the light in my portraits. We will go step by step, set up strobes, check angles and in the end create a portrait.

Let’s begin with a single strobe set at 45/45 degrees. The left picture shows the flash set to 24mm, the right one – 85mm. What does 24 and 85 mean? These are setting found in small flashes like Nikon SB-800 or Canon 580EX II. The width of the beam of light depends on that focal length.

As you can see there is a full stop (f8 -> f11) difference in the power of light, however, when lighting bigger things, you would notice that the area of light is much smaller.

Above photos have harsh shadows, it doesn’t look great, does it? To make the shadows soft and the light more even around my face we would need to make the source bigger. People call it diffusing, I just say: making the light bigger, so it can reach the subject from different angles. The most simple tool to do so is a diffusing panel or an umbrella. Let’s try it again with a shoot-through umbrella:

As the umbrella is diffusing light, it is also taking away a bit of it’s power so I had to set 1/4th of power. There is much more light over my face and shadows are smoother. The 45/45 setup (when light is above the subject) is called the Rembrandt lighting. Although I don’t like the shadows on the left of my face. Some people tend to use a reflector to lighten them even more. I, on other hand, prefer deeper shadows. Lets move the strobe a bit and see how 90/90 setup would look:

Now shadows are bit deeper. Take a closer look at the round shadow left from my nose. In Rembrandt style it’s softer, but have a sharp shape. Actually the above shot should be at f9 for best highlights. I used the above lighting to take a portrait of my dad the other day:

Now it is time to go a step further and introduce a second strobe. The most common way to use it with this setup is to highlight hair and chick from the shadowed side. The second flash was set at 45/45 from the back-left.

That is the probably the most standard use of two-light setup. It is also a classic combination of soft and hard light. You can observe the difference, the softened by umbrella light gives an even, soft texture, while the hard, bare strobe accentuates the skin texture and hair.

When you know the classics, why not try something different. Changing the angles, colors, hardness and strength – that’s where the fun begins! Ha! ;) Ok, so lets take away that big umbrella and set strobes at 30/30 degrees from bellow-back. Then lets add some colors: one orange for kick, or maybe two blue – Avatar style:

And that’s only a beginning. For my Week 2 photo I used only two strobes, can you guess the setup? Sure you can! Just observe the shadows and highlights.

Last week I have shown you how to search for inspirations, however, when taking pictures you can’t only depend on others’ ideas. Most of the time the visual inspirations are just the kicker I need to become more creative myself. I start experimenting with light, I visualize an idea in my mind and then try to recreate it on the photograph. I make notes, try to describe what I want to achieve and so on… you get the point:)

Wish many creative shots to all of you!

Hope you enjoyed that introduction to portrait lighting. I had fun making this tutorial and will try to make more in future. Cya