When Light and Right Come Together
February 5, 2009 – 11:57 am | by fotodog
First, I’d like to thank Jay for inviting me to blog for him. As Jay may have mentioned we’ve been friends online for years and it’s been a great relationship. We’ve both learned a ton from each other along the way and I feel honoured to be able to contribute.
My goal is to motivate photographers of all skill levels to go outside their comfort zone to try new things and explore their creative sides. Think of it like an online mentor/coach.
So, for my first post I want to discuss using a different lighting technique to get dramatic results for a portrait of my friend, McGeeky. McGeeky is very proud of his Twin Lens Relfex and was excited to get a new hat for Christmas.
This photo was taken in McGeeky’s spare bedroom We didn’t need a lot of room or fancy backdrops to make this happen.
We used a Photogenic 1250 (500 watt seconds) with a course honeycomb grid and diffuser about 4 feet from the subject at 1/16th power resulting in f/22 at ISO 160. A Black cloth is our background about a foot behind the subject.
The light was eye level to McGeeky pointed downward towards the camera. Originally we had a fine grid on the light but we didn’t get any spill onto the hat and without the diffuser the course grid was just a titch hot.
Approaching this image as more of a product shoot instead of a portrait shoot allowed us to explore different avenues to find the right image. I could have put an umbrella or softbox on the light and done a nice soft light at about 45 degrees off center for a portrait but McGeeky is one of those photographers that likes to blend into the background and focus on getting the image. So isolating the camera with light seemed like the right approach for him.
Do you think we were successful in getting a dramatic shot of McGeeky?
Now your challenge.
What other lighting techniques would you use to capture a unique guy like McGeeky?
I welcome your comments and critiques about the images and techniques I present here and also welcome suggestions for new posts.
Thanks,
~greg a/k/a Fotodog
2 Responses to “When Light and Right Come Together”
By J. Rodriguez on Feb 5, 2009 | Reply
Awesome post Greg!
What I would use for this kind of shot is my Canon 580EXii with a medium snoot (at a remote distance).
Canon XTi ISO 100 F16 1/200.