Photography News issue 27

Photography News Issue 27 absolutephoto.com

Technique

Left Simple changes in lighting position and the posing of your subject can have a big effect on the look of a portrait. Here, with broad lighting the closest part of the subject’s face is lit, but with narrow lighting the further side is illuminated, which thins the features. Which you choose all depends on how you want the subject to look.

Broad lighting

Narrow lighting

Flash triggering and exposure settings; how to get started

The technical aspects of flash can be off- putting; the worries about exposure, or the flash not working, or how you control the power. But the best thing is to get your hands on some studio flash equipment and try it out – that’s the only way to see how easy it is. Thanks to affordable radio triggers (something like a Hähnel Captur Remote will only set you back around £60), off-camera flash is easier to trigger than ever before, and many kits come with triggers provided (like Interfit’s £799 S1 kit reviewed in this issue). These connect the camera to flash with or without wires, and fire it as you shoot. So no concerns there. Exposure wise, shooting digitally takes a lot of the worry away because everything can be checked on screen and the flash power or exposure settings tweaked as required. Broadly, it’s best to shoot in manual mode, setting a low ISO (you won’t need the extra sensitivity), then dialling in the aperture you want to use, depending on how you want the depth-of-field to look (low f/numbers if you want to keep just the subject sharp, and a higher f/number if you want increased depth- of-field to cover the background). Many photographers shoot flash pics around f/11 which gives lots of sharpness and avoids any slipped focus on the eyes. Next set the shutter speed to between 1/60sec and 1/250sec (the highest most flashes will sync to, though some offer high-speed settings), and take a test shot or use a flash meter to judge the flash power required. A meter will show the power output as an f/number, so you just need to control the power until it matches your exposure settings. If you don’t have a flash meter, bring the exposure histogram up on screen and turn the power up or down as required. Alternatively, open or close the aperture (or raise or lower the ISO) to match the flash power, if the depth-of-field isn’t important, but that’s rare. That really is all there is to the technical side. The rest – the stuff you really have to work at – comes from how you position the lights to illuminate your subject.

available light. What unlocked it for him was that, aside from the benefits of controllability, studio lighting could be used in just the same way as natural light; “I realised that if I set the light up as if it were a window, then I could treat the subject the same as I would using an actual window.” A large studio softbox will give a very similar look to a north-facing window, and many photographers add black tape to simulate the look even further, conjuring up a frame in the catchlights. “It seems trivial” continues Paul, “but that connection between available light and studio lighting helped me gain confidence with my first images. I knew I could use window light, which meant I could just use one flash to do exactly the same thing”. When starting out he explains how using a polystyrene head froman art shops, and fitting it with two glass marbles helped him practice lighting and see where the catchlights ended in the eyes as well as the shadows across the face, too. Applying a style Taking his experience in natural light and building upon it with flash, Paul found that his style naturally fell into that look. “Wherever possible I use a single light source – and certainly I always like to keep things as simple as possible. It’s rare for me to use overly dramatic or theatrical lighting unless I’m trying to create something very specific. When I think of lighting patterns I would find naturally, they’re all possible to recreate: window light, light through a doorway, light reflected from walls, scattered light through leaves and so on – and with flash they can be used absolutely anywhere.” But how to decide on the specific style of light? When you see how easy flash is to control, there’s an element of ‘die Qual der Wahl’ (the agony of choice); you can place the lights anywhere, so where do you pick, and why? The easiest way to answer this is to work from a brief; a central idea about what you want the portrait to ‘say’. That brief could be your own plan or it could be what the subject is seeking, though most often it’s

a compromise. “If it’s a broad brief such as a portrait shoot where the client trusts you to make decisions then I will look at the client’s clothing, body shape, face etc., and will try to imagine images that will work for that person”, says Paul. Most portraits, after all are about flattery and showing the subject looking at their best. Lighting positions and possibilities So, in what ways can the lights be used to flatter and shape the subject? As well as more general advice, Paul and Sarah’s book goes into lots of detailed comparison showing how simple changes in lighting position, modification, and the subject’s pose can influence the look. For example ‘broad lighting’ and ‘narrow lighting’ styles are important to practise. These relate to whether

your key light (the main light that sets the form of the subject) is striking the side of the face that’s closer or further from the camera. Narrow lighting, in which the near side of the face is more shadowed than the further side, has the effect of thinning faces. Broad lighting has the opposite effect. So, picking the right one is important. Distinctive lighting positions produce very different styles, and again some are more suited to particular subjects or moods than others. For instance, a small change in the position of the key light – a matter of moving a few degrees more to the side – turns flattering ‘loop lighting’ where a soft shadow is formed at the side of nose’s base, into Rembrandt lighting. This is more contrasty and dramatic, seeing a longer shadow from the nose extend to the cheek leaving only a

Above You don’t need complex lighting arrangements for a great shot. Here, one light with a large softbox replicates the simplicity of natural light.