Lighting technique tips and tutorials with setups and diagrams
Studio lighting setups
Hipolit Terpinsky gives this nifty little lighting setup to all you retro lovers out there. To add that extra classic movie star touch, put a cigarette in the models mouth, and load your camera with old school grainy black and white film (Ilford FP4).
But leave your flux capacitor at home.
Lighting For Photo legend David Bicho is back with a great lighting setup for high fashion. This is a pretty advanced lighting setup, but the result shows us that it’s worth all the effort.
David is also sharing a PDF of the assignment brief he wrote to the wardrobe stylist. It explains the mood, the story behind the photo etc.
A while ago I got this video tutorial from Santa Ana based photographer Sean Armenta. It’s a simple one-light beauty setup that gives stunning results.
There is no lighting diagram in this tutorial, but Sean explains very clearly how to set up the light, so you can easily use this lighing setup yourself.
There are also some other useful tips about make up, digital image editing and more. Enjoy!
Check out Sean’s blog for more inspiration and information about lighting and photography.
Photographer Mattias Olsson is giving us this clean and crisp fashion lighting setup. The black flags prevent light spilling from the rear strobes. The key light from the beauty dish is distinctive and punchy, which accentuates the models expressive personality.
Magnus Svensson took some great promo photos for the band Amy’s Ashes, and gives you an exciting portrait lighting setup with a bright shiny look n feel. Shooting against the light this way gives you those prominent vivid flares. There are two beauty dishes from the back, and one big softbox a bit to the right from the camera.
Magnus Svensson is back with another funky fresh lighting setup. The key light is a ringlight wich gives the very characteristic light and maybe most of all, a characteristic shadow if the model stands close to the background. There is also one stripbox on each side that gives the reflection in the glossy outfit.
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.
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