A primer on lighting (newbie)

[macandal]

Hello. I am going to be shooting some full body portraits and I guess I need to learn a little about how to light the subjects. Is this difficult to do? What would I need (equipment-wise) and how do I go about doing it? Or is this not so easy and perhaps this will require taking a class or something?

If I buy basics (lighting equipment), how much should I expect to buy? Where should I buy? Or, should I just rent? I figured since I will be shooting quite a number of people maybe I should buy the stuff? Or maybe not, since I have no experience with lighting.

Thanks.

[Peter De Smidt]

There are a lot of ways to do this. Like many things, it's not that hard to to a decent job, but to do an outstanding job requires lots of skill. If I were you, I'd check a book like Light, Science and Magic out of your local library and give it a good peruse.

Your main decision will be whether to use continuous lighting (skylight, hot lights, florescent, HMIs, photo floods....) or flash.

So you want to photograph one person full-body? What type of camera, lens and film? What type of look are you going for?

You may want to hire a local professional assistant photographer, preferably one with LF film experience, or perhaps rent out an equipped studio. None of this stuff is rocket science, but it really helps to work with someone that knows the equipment. Otherwise, the first time you pull a flash connector out of a powered-up Speedotron pack, you could be in for a bit of a surprise. In addition, there's a number of safety issues, both for you and the model. For example, a pro assistant will know how to safely set up stands, run cables, use safety shields...

Alternatively, there are a number of Forum members in your area. Perhaps one of them could give you a hand.

[macandal]

There are a lot of ways to do this. Like many things, it's not that hard to to a decent job, but to do an outstanding job requires lots of skill. If I were you, I'd check a book like Light, Science and Magic out of your local library and give it a good peruse.

Your main decision will be whether to use continuous lighting (skylight, hot lights, florescent, HMIs, photo floods....) or flash.

So you want to photograph one person full-body? What type of camera, lens and film? What type of look are you going for?

You may want to hire a local professional assistant photographer, preferably one with LF film experience, or perhaps rent out an equipped studio. None of this stuff is rocket science, but it really helps to work with someone that knows the equipment. Otherwise, the first time you pull a flash connector out of a powered-up Speedotron pack, you could be in for a bit of a surprise. In addition, there's a number of safety issues, both for you and the model. For example, a pro assistant will know how to safely set up stands, run cables, use safety shields...

Alternatively, there are a number of Forum members in your area. Perhaps one of them could give you a hand.

Peter, thanks for your reply. Wow, I knew this would not be an easy question.

I want to photograph one person (and, why not, perhaps a group), full body most of the time, though, at times, it could be a face shot. I am shooting LF (Sinar F2 4x5). I only have one lens and, I believe, it's a 180mm. Shooting Portra 400.

As far as what look I'm going for? I don't know. I really don't know. Portraiture is something I want to get into, and I'm just learning.

I was thinking of using continuous lighting, not flash.

As far as hiring assistants, that's out of the question. Like I said, I'm a beginner. The assistants will come later, once I have more experience. I am looking at an easy way to light a subject, something I can do alone.

Thanks.

[Peter De Smidt]

That's too bad about the assistant. Beginners are the ones that need them the most. You could think of it as taking a one-on-one class.

One of the main points of portrait lighting is how soft/hard you want the transitions from shadow to lit area to be. Consider a sphere all around your subject. This provides all of the angles that light can hit your subject from. The more angles that are hit with light, the softer the light will be. I.e the more gentle the transition from lit are to shadow area will be. If equal light came from every direction, there would be no shadows and no fall off. So a big light source placed close to a subject will be soft. Moving it farther away will cause it to be harder. The sun, a huge source, is nonetheless so far away that it's a hard light source.

Soft light is very good for more delicate pictures. It de-emphasizes texture and emphasizes subject structure. It's also more forgiving. Hard light, the hardest being a point light source from far away, give's extreme contrast. This can be very effective, especially with men, but you have to be very careful where the shadows fall.

There is ton's more, but there are lots of books and sites about this, and
you should do some reading, both on line and in books. Once you get and idea of the basic, then you can ask more specific questions. In any case, you should consider doing some lighting tests with a digital Dslr, which are like contemporary polaroids.

[macandal]

One of the main points of portrait lighting is how soft/hard you want [...], but you have to be very careful where the shadows fall.

Thanks Peter. Lots of info to digest.

So, going back to your previous question about "the look" I'm after, I guess I would use Timothy Greenfield Sanders. If you saw the documentary on HBO when he was shooting his book, XXX: 30 Porn-Star Portraits, or The Black List, that's what I imagine I would like the photographs to look, as my (limited) experience and budget allow.

[Peter De Smidt]

That helps.

Here's some terms:

Main light (or key light): The light that determines how the shadows fall on the main part of your subject.

Fill light (or reflector): A light that illuminates the subject less than the main light. It's main purpose is to control how dark the shadows are.

Background light(s): Lights used to illuminate the background.

There are more special purpose lights, but those are the main ones.

In your case there were probably two lights, a main light in either a beauty dish, umbrella, or a soft box with a roundish mask to camera, probably about a 45 degree angle from camera to subject to light, with the light being elevated a foot or two higher than the model's head.

To see this look where the catch light is and it's shape. Also note the shadow from her nose. It's mildly soft, and it goes down to the corner of her mouth. This is what's commonly called "rembrandt" lighting. There was also probably a light on the background. It doesn't look like there was much, if any, fill, although the tell-tales signs could have been edited out of her eyes.

Hot lights are nice in that what you see is what you get shadow wise. But they do use a lot of current, the bulbs can explode, which requires a metal safety screen, and the constant high light and heat can be hard on the model, and you have to be careful if you get the light too close to a flammable object, as they can start fires.

[jmooney]

Greenfield Sanders uses a single light source but it's a monstrous octobank. I love the look he gets though:

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2008/07...reenfield.html

There are some videos on this page and you can see his setup in some of them as well as here him talk about his work.

[cjbroadbent]

My advice to a novice (others may protest).
Lighting is a forest - too many trees. Take the woodchopper's approach. Get into the middle and chop down one tree. Then chop around.

Have a look at Irving Penn's portraits. Aim for that simple north window light look.

To be sure of success with the first tree, buy, borrow or rent one 1200ws strobe with a stand and an umbrella. It is the nearest thing to a window light to be had for small money and it is directional. Put it just above and off your left shoulder pointing, neither down nor at, but across your subject. If strobe is too expensive, use a 600W movie lamp with an umbrella adapter but your subject will have to hold still.

You don't light the subject - he lights himself by pointing his nose at the light, or at the camera or away from the light. Three very different moods.

For the next tree in the forest; make the shadow side of the subject separate out from the background. A little slave strobe on a clip, real daylight mixed in or even your one umbrella well placed, will light the area of the background behind the dark side of your subject (never, ever light your subjects head from behind to get separation - that's 'salon' photography and bad television).

One umbrella works. It's easy. You may never need any other lighting gear for the rest of the job.

[Brian K]

I'd avoid umbrellas, they spill light all over the place.CJ mentioned Irving Penn, a true master of light. I've assisted Penn back in the 1970's and a very common way he would light a full figure would be to make a white reflective wall. It was usually a V of 2- 4x8' or 3x 8' white panels he would bounce a light off of these panels. By varying the distance of the light to the panel he could soften or intensify the light. Also as the panels were quite large they were better able to provide a fairly even light over a person's full figure, he would also back the light away to make the fall off from the side to side of the model less or more.

A black screen would closely surround the edges of the model, this would just barely be out of frame but it kept his subject lighting from hitting the background. This was also important as a means of keeping the white background from harming the image contrast and also giving the subject that hard defined edge off of the background.The background would be lit separately.

If he wanted to soften the shadows he would put a white reflector on the shadow side to bounce some fill back in. It was a fairly simple arrangement.

[Peter De Smidt]

How big of a space are you going to photograph in?

Umbrellas are light, compact, they set up quickly, they're round-ish (nice catchlights), and they can be moved quickly. You can get deeper or parabolic ones that minimize light spill, such as a Paul Buff. See: http://www.white-lightning.com/plm.html If you're going to be photographing in a bunch of different locations, umbrellas are really nice.

Brian's right, though, that if you have a fairly big space, and you aren't going to take the panels on location, V-flats are a good way to light the whole figure, as well as groups of people. To make one, you take two sheet of 4 foot by 8 foot foam core. I like the sheets that are white on one side and black on the other. Lay them down flat with the long edges butting together and the same color facing up. Now take a quarter and slip it between the two sheets at the top and bottom. What you want is a small 3-4mm gap between the sheets. Use white gaffer's tape to run down the white side seam and black tape down the black side. You now have a nice clean reflective white surface and subtractive black surface that's free standing. However, it probably won't fit in you car.

I recently did a full length portrait in my smallish living room. Since the walls are whitish, I bounced the main light onto the wall and ceiling. It was't LF, though, and so I can't post it here. It on my blog.

Personally, I think flash is the best way to go, as you get a lot of light, the flash freezes motion, and it's generally easier on the subject. Modeling lights are pretty good these days so that you know what you're going to get on film.