Lighting technique tips and tutorials with setups and diagrams
Diagrams of the lighting setups
Here’s another great shot from photographer Cecilie Harris. The beauty dish gives a bit harder light than a softbox. If you don’t want the light to be too hard, you can use a reflector to reduce some of the shadows.
Here is a stylish black and white fashion photo by photographer Cecilie Harris. The lighting setup is very simple using only a window and a reflector, yet the result is amazing. Very inspiring!
This photo by Pontus Höök is taken in a hallway at Colorado Avalanche’s training facilities. Peter Forsberg came right of the rink to Pontus’ makeshift photo studio. The sweat you see is real. 22 exposures later Peter is off to the locker room. The photo is shot using analog film.
This photo was the cover photo of the first edition of the sportmagazine “S”
Cool locations demands cool lighting setups. Photographer Pontus Höök shot a portrait of Ottawa NHL player Daniel Alfredsson in a small aircraft. Daniel Alfredsson who was studying to get his pilot’s certificate at the time. There is a strobe with a softbox in the cockpit, wirelessly fired by pocket wizards.
This dramatic lighting setup goes perfect with the dramatic sky and camera angle.
You can follow Pontus on twitter.
This is a very creative and playful portrait lighting setup by photographer Pontus Höök. The key light is actually from a laptop and then there’s a regular lamp used as a kicker. Great results with a minimum of lighting equipment. Since the light sources aren’t very powerful, this setup requires a lens with a large maximum aperture. In this case 1.2. The shutter speed is 1/40 and the camera is handheld. Pelle is the lead singer in The Hives and this photo is taken backstage at a concert.
Here is another great example from Erika Gerdemark on how to work with natural light. The shadows and the low camera angle gives a dramatic expression to the photo.
A good photographer must understand the light. Even when you shoot in natural light with no lighting equipment what so ever, you still should not just point and shoot. A trained eye will quickly identify the lighting possibilities provided by the surrounding environment. In this photo by Erika Gerdemark the darker forest behind the photographer will block some light, while the ocean in the background will reflect some light. Erika is also playing with the light by using the models them self. By letting some light slip over the grooms shoulder and light up the eye of the bride, Erika adds that extra magic and makes this scene exceptionally beautiful.
This image is a pure tribute to the classic crying-images by Jill Greenberg. This is really showing the crisp and contrasty light of the beloved Profoto Giant (the huge umbrella). From the back, I use two strip lights and a hair light on a boom stand to create a “kicker” all around her silhouette. One gridded light on the black background (turns blue when white balancing to get nice skin tones). Just below the model there is a squared silver reflector (I hate round ones!) to give the classic extra lower clam-shellish-spark to the eye to give some feeling of “wet eyes”… To eliminate all unwanted indirect lightning, I used big black book ends to really push the contrast by lowering the levels in the shadows.
Visit photographer David Bicho for more great inspiration.