www.camerasbrookwood.com

Portrait Lighting with One Light by Steve Higginbotham "Maggie"

Most customer that purchase lighting from Cameras Brookwood , buy a lighting kit with multiple heads, stands and umbrellas. Every once in while I have a customer with a limited budget, but they still want some type of strobe lighting and I tell them you can get good results with one light, whether your shooting portraits, weddings or products. When you shoot with one light you will produce photos with distinct shadows and that’s not bad. Shadows give a subject depth and texture. However we are all so accustomed to the smooth evenly lit images we see in magazines, one might forget there is a place for shadows.

Rembrandt Van Rijn, the Dutch painter of the 17th Century was a master of the use of light and shadow. Almost all of his paintings had directional lighting as you have in nature and would get using one light. There is a style of portrait lighting called Rembrandt Lighting. An example is below . Rembrandt lighting is characterized by the main light source positioned in front of and above the subject at about a 30 to 45 degree angle and positioned toward the side at a similar angle. You want to place the light so the eyes are illuminated, there is a shadow to one side of the nose and a triangle of light on the opposite cheek. You can use more lights to enhance the subject, but one light can do an excellent job.

Another aspect of this photo is I did not use a soft light modifier, such as an umbrella or soft box. Instead, to create a more dramatic portrait, I used a deep bowl reflector, 11 inches in diameter to light Maggie. The deep reflector not only focused more light onto Maggie, it prevented light from spilling onto my black background.

When I shoot a wedding, I always use one light to photograph the formal shots in the church. Using two lights means placing lights in the pews in some churches and that’s just a hassle. Also, two lights can produce crossing shadows that are not attractive.

My set-up is one flash head,1200 watt-seconds, in the middle of the aisle, a tall stand, 13 feet high and a big umbrella, 60 inches.This set-up will light the whole altar area of a church. You do need a very bright strobe to shoot in a large church. In many newer and some older churches, there are directional can lights in the ceiling. If your lights are not significantly brighter than the can lights you may get some bad shadows and a yellow tungsten tint in your photos that is hard to correct.

Another area of photography where shooting with one light is beneficial is food and small product photography. When photographing these subjects you want the light to come from above, just as the light in a room. A great way to set this up is use a softbox suspended over the subject. To place a light above a subject you need a lighting boom. A light boom is a counterbalanced arm mounted on a heavy duty stand with a tilting mechanism so you can move the boom and your light up and down.

And that is the Cameras Brookwood Featured Product of the Week. The RPS Boom and Stand. Now I’ve seen a lot of light booms over the years and this is the best for the bucks, which is great. At $188.95, you get the boom, heavy duty stand and counterweight. Most booms are made from aluminum, the RPS is steel it does not flex like aluminum. The set can hold a large head with no problem.

Another great use for booms is to hold a hair light for portraiture. A hairlight makes all the difference in a portrait. If you look at Maggie’s shot I used at the top of the article, the top of her head is dark and does not show the true light color of her hair. This is the result of the main light,which is aimed at the subject, skipping off her head toward the background and not the camera. A hair light will illuminate the hair and provide some separation between the subject and the background.

So, there you are, a few tips on using one strobe for portraits and the introduction of a great new product. Please visit our store at 1425 Montgomery Highway in Vestavia and ask for Steve. I would be glad to help with any lighting questions.