October 2009

What's Light Got To Do With It?
October 13, 2009: This title sounds like a Tina Turner song from 1985. When you're a photographer lighting is everything. The problem is, we can't always count on good light at the times we're expected to shoot. Unfortunately, the sun is some 94 million miles away and we can't control it, and we can't control the clouds that often block it. Sooooo....we have to take control by creating our own light when the sun isn't cooperating. Even on sunny days, if the time of day is wrong, the light can be worse than if it were behind a cloud bank. Usually those times of day are anytime after 10:00 in the morning and before 4:00 in the evening. But still, no matter what the situation is, as a professional photographer I'm expected to stay in control of the light. I expect it personally and my clients expect it professionally.

Here are a few examples of how I control light.

The first picture below, was taken at a warehouse in Lexington. The existing light was coming from the fluorescent lights above, and the shelves were gray, so face it, I was dealing with a pretty dull situation. I was doing this as a Corporate shoot for an annual report, so I needed to turn this boring warehouse scene into something colorful and fun. As the old saying goes, you can't always make a purse out of a sow's ear, but you have to at least try. I took Steve, the warehouse man, who was my subject for this shot, and stood him between two shelves. I had a White Lightning with a 30 degree spotgrid to my right, and another light directly behind his head, with another 30 degree spotgrid attached, and a yellow gel to add some color. As an added bonus, light spilled from the back of the reflector and made a halo effect on the wall behind. In the end, it was still a warehouse shot, but it now had a smiling face and some color.

 

The shot below was at Saint Joseph Hospital Berea. It highlighted a program where the hospital works with local donors and pharmacies to help provide medicine to people who can't afford it. It was a pretty day outside, and I wanted to use the statue of Saint Joseph in the foreground of the photo, to help illustrate the giving nature of the program. The only problem was, it was 2:00 in the afternoon and the light was horrible for what I was trying to do. Instead of dragging out my big lights and a battery pack, I opted to use my smaller speed lights. I used two SB26s (Nikon's last great film flash), and one SB800. I basically had a light positioned on each subject. Saint Joseph's light was to my left, while each man had a light positioned on him to my right. The great thing about using speed lights, in addition to their size and built in power, is that you can zoom down the path of light. I call it choking down the light. The lights on the two men were set on 70mm which allowed me to pinpoint the light directly on their faces, while the light on Saint Joseph was set on 50mm (a wider swath of light) which lit the entire statue. Lastly, I balanced these lights with the ambient light so that I could keep my deep blue sky. The only problem with the ambient light light was that it was straight above. My speed lights simply allowed me to pump in some light on their faces, while letting the sun light the rest of my photo.

 

This was for the same annual report shoot. I was in a dimly lit conference room with no color. In addition to using spot grids on my White Lightnings to pinpoint my light, I put a blue gel on a light behind the table, to help throw some color on to the white wall behind the people. Again, it added just a touch of color, that complimented two of the blue shirts.




This was an easy shoot. I had an attractive subject with a good background that helped tell her story. It's always important to me, whether I'm shooting a Corporate assignment or a newspaper assignment, that my photos tell a story. When it comes to telling a story, the foreground and background are just as important as the subject. I like to break it down into primary subject (the nurse), and secondary subjects (the ambulance and emergency sign). I put a softbox to my left, and a spotgrid, throwing as much light as I could muster onto the sign. You can see two sets of shadows on the sign, one is from me and the bigger shadow is from the sun.



This was a shot of a forensic psychiatrist at Saint Joseph. I used a spotgrid to my right to light his face, a spotgrid to my left to throw just a little bit of light on the book shelf. Then I used a speedlight with a red gel behind him to add a little color. I purposely made the background go darker, so that emphasis would be on his face.

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