Home Studio 2

Barry Graham continues with Part II

This month I intend to talk about using lights in a home studio. Although I would like to finish off last months article by showing you an example shoot of using an ordinary room and available light. You remember I said about looking through the viewfinder to check the scene background rather than the model. No plugs, clutter as we do not want the viewer distracted from the main subject, our beautiful model. These rules stand true no matter what lighting you use.

I have included a few photographs that were taken in a library using available light.

Click any image to see the full size picture.

So I hope these show you that a very small space and natural light can produce super glamour pictures.

Obviously it's not possible to always work during the day in your home studio so there will be occasions when you have to use lights. Remember last month we said this living room would be about 12 x 13 feet. So if we pull in some ruddy great bowens flash units we are going to be in real trouble. As always the problems using lights are many fold and the effect they can have on film are varied and quite scary. So for those of you that don't know, indoor lighting. such as a household bulb will produce a much warmer light than daylight and effect a red colour cast on the film. This is called Tungsten lighting. Used by photographers many years ago and then called Photoflood. Also Fluorescent lighting will give a strong mauvish (magenta) colour cast to film. Now you can buy special tranny film that is designed to be used with tungsten lighting, but it's not moved on as much as other films and is usually quite a low speed.

The other options are to use a wratton 80b filter over the lens to correct the red colour cast, but it takes out an awful lot of light, and using tungsten lights anyway (not as bright as flash)  it usually means shutter speed gets very slow.  None of these problems occur with digital as you can set the white light setting to whatever your situation is.

No the answer plain and simply is to use flash. The problem this gives you is terrifically black and hard edged shadows behind the model, which look dreadful. A solution is to move her as far away as possible from any background, but in the space we are talking about that really is impossible. We need to diffuse the light as much as we can so any shadows we produce are at least soft. Look again at the natural light pictures above. We want shadow, but gentle modelling shadow that accentuates the lines and curves of our model.

Flash on Camera

The standard flash on the camera above the lens hides the shadows to a good degree, but offers only flat uninteresting lighting as the picture on the right demonstrates.  This also produces all the problems of red eye. Move the flash off to the side on a standard pro stick and the modelling effect of the lighting   improves slightly, but now we have the harsh background shadow as the picture on the left shows.  Ideally we need to move the flash further to the side, yet at the same time not create any shadows. In such a small space it is almost impossible.

There are many things you can try and one of the most common solutions is to light the wall behind the model. Flooding the area where the shadow would be cast with light certainly kills the problem, but it becomes intrusive and the model actually becomes secondary to the background as the example on the left.

All methods of Flash

We don't have this harsh shadow problem with natural light unless we are working in strong direct sunlight and that is because that lighting is so diffused. So that's what we must aim to do, no matter if we have a single flash, or three huge pro units, diffuse the lighting.  The simplest way of achieving this is to point the flash/s away from the subject in the opposite direction, especially into the corners of the room. This breaks up the direction of the light and makes it bounce all round the room. Obviously the modelling effect you seek with lights becomes difficult, if not impossible to control. 

Soft boxes are available in all sizes these days and are wonderful for diffusing light and work very well, even on flash on camera, yet do not really produce enough diffusing in the very small space we are concerned with. If you are lucky enough to have a space (large lounge) big enough to move the model away from her background and get the lights far enough back, then soft boxes are your answer.

If not then I have a tried and trusted method that is a little involved, but works every time. I use white opaque umbrellas on the flash heads. I point the flash away from the model with the umbrella reflecting the light back to her. Unfortunately light still goes through the umbrella and bounces around the walls creating shadows. I have found if I drape the back of the umbrella with black velvet this absorbs the spare light and creates soft diffused lighting that will model without black shadows.

I am sure somebody out there is saying, "All you are doing is decreasing the amount of light, just turn the flash power down." I have experimented with non opaque umbrellas and soft boxes and anything else you can name, but for some reason the velvet seems to work and it really does kill shadows. You will need a flash meter, (small ones can be picked up very cheaply) and even with the lights you may still need to use reflectors. Look at a pro studio. Even with all the lighting reflectors are used.

So experiment, trial and error and most importantly, if your pictures come back and are dreadful don't despair and chuck it all in, learn and move on. Every failure I have had has simply been a learning experience for me and eventually I got it right. Working in a small confined space with lights is not easy and taxes even the most experienced, yet most good amateurs only have such a space expect to turn out work of professional quality taken in a vast studio. Practice, experiment, and improve. Find what works for you.

Finally in desperation if you do get it wrong you could just scan the pictures in and clean up the shadow around the model as on the left.

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