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15. Some Studio Lighting Tricks and Tips
Here we'll briefly discuss some basic tricks and tips for use in the photographer's studio. Many of these have been alluded to in this, or other, articles.
High Key Studio Photography We discussed high key photography principals in the article "Using Exposure and Contrast to Artistic Effect". High Key photography is characterized by its lack of contrast; bright objects, brightly lit, against bright backgrounds. This technique is often embraced as a means for conveying a very happy mood. In the studio, blowing out our background is no longer a matter of circumstance, but rather, under our control. We simply need to intentionally bath our background with much more light than what we cast on our subject, then, set our camera exposure for that of the subject. To accomplish this, we put lights, at a significantly higher output than is falling our subjects, on our background. This will result in a completely over-exposed background, adding to our high-key effect.
Notice the two softboxes pointed at the white muslin behind the subject. They are set to a much higher output than the light falling on our subject.
The background is completely over-exposed, creating a soft, non-intrusive background for our subject to "pop" against.
Creating Faint Reflections to Accentuate our Portraits You've likely seen pictures in which the subject casts a faint reflection on the floor. This adds an interesting detail without being obtrusive. To accomplish this, photographer's may use a large piece of Plexiglass. The clear Plexiglass allows the flooring to shine through, making it very non-descript in the final image. It just adds the slight reflection.
A slight reflection is cast in the Plexiglass; however, the white muslin shows through the clear surface, adding a subtle but nice detail to our picture. The angle of your camera to the Plexiglass will greatly impact how pronounced the reflection is. A more acute angle of the camera in relation to the Plexiglass will yield a more pronounced reflection. If we were to angle our camera at a more obtuse angle with relation to the Plexiglass, the reflections would diminish.
Color Casting Studio Lights Some photographers enjoy playing not only with light, but with color. One can imagine the many creative pictures that may arise from have lighting sources of multiple colors. Studio flash Gels are simply colored plastic sheets that fit over your flash head. As previously discussed, your studio flashes are calibrated to emit light at a color consistent with broad daylight, if you want to accentuate your light toward a particular color, you'll need to modify them. You may purchase gels of all different colors. When your flash fires through them, the light will be cast the color of the gel. This allows your paint your scene not only with light and shadow, but color as well.
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