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Photography News Issue 22 absolutephoto.com
Technique
This broader backlight gave a really nice haloing effect, reminiscent of a lower sun and filled the image with even more light tones
Above Soft or hard fill light? The modifier to use depends on the look you want. We were after a soft, high-key style, so used a bounce umbrella on the fill light to give lots of diffusion (in the picture above right, it’s placed to Amber’s left), but if you want a slightly harder look to the shadows that’s more like direct sunlight, a simple reflector dish does the job just fine (above left).
This did mean that we had to re-meter for the flash power – the extra diffusion meant that more power was required – and this was reset to around 1/8th. Whether it’s the distance, angle or modifier of the light that you change, it’s important to readjust the power of the lights as even minor alterations can throw your exposure completely off. The ambient exposure should remain roughly the same, but it’s also worth keeping an eye on, too. Adding the hair light With the fill light balancing the ambient backlighting from the sun, you could explore the scene quite happily. However, if you want a bit more control, or if the sun isn’t hitting the subject quite as you intended, an additional flash positioned to the rear can help. Of course, this can be used as a complete substitute for the sun if desired. Starting with the intention of training this light on Amber’s hair alone, we set up a second Safari 2 head on a stand behind and to her right, roughly in the same direction as the sun. We first tried the flash with just its reflector dish, finding the throw of light to be a bit too broad and also getting some flare from it in that position – a nice effect if it’s what you’re going for, but not something you want to achieve by accident. Fitting the reflector dish with a 10º honeycomb, the light was much more controlled, but even so, it fell across her neck a little too much, creating a rather hard shadow there. The solution here was to feather the light a little by angling it upwards, so that most of it was missing Amber’s hair, and just picking up the points we wanted. Positioned further away than the fill light and also angled off, we needed 1/4th power to get the aperture that we wanted. Fine-tuning the results With the fill and hair lights both working well in the scene, a few more tweaks were made to improve the modelling on Amber and also try some different looks. Firstly, the fill light with its bounce umbrellawasmoved over to camera left pretty much opposite the sun and the hair light; in this opposing position, it provided
the maximum fill effect, lowering contrast on Amber even further. We also triedout adirect backlighting effect, positioning the second light directly behind Amber and framing tighter so it was hidden. Here, the same honeycombmodifier was used, but because the light was closer to Amber, the power was dropped to 1/8th; the fill light was moved back towards the camera a little, but at the same distance, and after checking it was used at the same power as before (1/8th). This broader backlight gave a really nice haloing effect, reminiscent of a lower sun and filled the image with even more light tones. Some burnout was seen in Amber’s hair, and while the power on the back light could have been dropped to remove this, we were happy with the glow it gave.
The kit we used
As you’d expect, for a shoot like this you’re likely to be well away from the luxury of mains power, so you need a flash system that runs from a power pack, like Lencarta’s Safari 2. Equally important then is the amount of power that’s provided and how long it lasts as you need enough to have flexibility in your lighting and certainly don’t want to run out mid shoot. The Safari 2 has a 600Ws flash generator that’s small and light enough carry about (we took two on this shoot in their carry cases and didn’t break a sweat carrying them), and that power is adjustable over five stops down to 1/32nd in 1/3rd increments. The kit is rated at 400 flashes per charge, but of course this rises at the lower power settings, so you’re highly unlikely to find it running out on you. The flash generator is connected to the head by a heavy-duty cable of about 3m in length, so there’s plenty of scope in positioning one away from the other. As mentioned opposite, it also has a 15W LED modelling lamp (equivalent to 150W), which means you can check lighting more easily with accessory flashguns, which are often used in these kind of location shoots. What’s more, the popular Bowens S-fit modifiers used mean there’s no messing about with annoying and flimsy flashgun attachments – whatever you use in the studio you can simply apply outdoors, too.
Fill light with no backlight
Backlighting with a honeycomb
Thanks to thismonth’smodel, the wonderful Amber Tutton. To see more of her work, or enquire about a booking, visit amber-tutton.co.uk.
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