Light Hackers Photography - 'Lighting Deconstructed' 2

For the second lighting breakdown in this series we chose to deconstruct another favourite image, and one we waited to shoot till the end due to the mess this shot produced.

The image we produced, entitled 'Under Her Spell' was from the same portrait series with Deborah as the previous post in this 'Deconstructed' blog.

Greatly inspired by a series of images created by Montreal based photographer Von Wong, we wanted to try what he accomplished with an array of studio strobes, but with just 3 flashguns!!

Here is the image that inspired us:

We were very pleased with our results especially considering this was the very first attempt in shooting with flour, and the lighting design was something we had planned in advance, so it was a case of fine tuning the settings and A LOT of trial shots (9 to be exact) to produce 2 images from the shoot.

Here you can see a behind the scenes shot from the location.

As you can see, we were lucky to make use of a VERY large veranda... actually this was at the mansion house built for Captain Livingstone's return from exploring Africa.
I can't stress enough the mess that flour creates... in Von Wong's work they went so far as to use electric fans to disperse the flour... it took them hours to clean up the mess produced, and they were shooting in a vacant warehouse. We chose to lessen the required cleanup, and still it took ages to vacuum the walls and everything in sight... Be warned, only leave essentials you are using in the vicinity!

In this 'Lighting Diagram' the full lighting arrangement and settings are shown.

The lighting was something we created to work, and it did. The hardest part of this type of photography is that you can't meter the flour in the scene or compose for it exactly. It becomes a trial and error at first till you home in the lighting and the way to disperse the flour at the chosen moment.


We found that a third amount of flour was needed to be thrown in, and added to what Deborah was throwing out.That came from the camera assistant throwing in a handful, using a verbal countdown to be in sync with Deborah's throws. A technique in actually throwing the flour was needed so it spread out correctly... A lot of variables we hadn't considered till on the actual shoot.


We shot 2 further clean plates, just of flour being thrown in front of the lens, to be backup elements in Photoshop... a very necessary move!!!


The final 2 images were graded in Lightroom, and composited in Photoshop.


Here is the second finished image from this series titled 'In The Clouds'

Well that's a wrap for now, but keep checking in for more 'Behind the Scenes' write-ups from us at Light Hackers.

Light Hackers Photography - 'Lighting Deconstructed'

Lighting a subject is part technical, part intuitive and part creative.

Here we will be posting some of our recent shots from our portrait sessions, and 'deconstructing' the lighting that created them.

First off to get us started is 'At Rest'

In this portrait of a dancer we wanted to explore the theme 'At Rest' ... However for a more visual treat I loosely based the portrait on the famous image, Lewis Morley's 1963 portrait of Christine Keeler.

In my mind I wanted to include a great deal of shadows both in the subject, and in the scene surrounding her. The difference to Lewis Morley's original, was that I wanted to reverse the setting / location, to have elements of a high key portrait. The very large windows with net curtains were a perfect option. I chose the natural light streaming through the windows to burn out slightly around the central focus. 


For the main key light I went for my favoured modifier, a 24" Beauty Dish. I wrapped the light around Deborah's face, by feathering the beauty dish so the light falls off dramatically with only the edges lighting her, this is the typical 'Rembrandt effect'. Metering on the highlights in Deborah's skin tones, I exposed at f4.This meant for a 1 - 1 1/2 stop over exposed window, metered at f5.6 - f8.



Making the pointe shoes the focus an added accent came from another gridded strobe positioned just off camera left. Being that this was a 'Strobist' set-up using flashguns and no modelling lights, the accent strobe was the hardest to position... Several test shots were need to position it to only illuminate the pointe shoes with no extra shadows created from fall-off. Then based on my set exposure of f4, my camera assistant simply dialled down the power output to an equal ratio.


In this 'Lighting Diagram' the full lighting arrangement and settings are shown.

The final BTS shot shows the setup we created... although taken prior to the final beauty dish placement, being directly above Deborah.

Well I hope you gleamed something positive from this write-up.. We will continue to post more 'Lighting Deconstructed' blogs in this series. Not only in photography, but also in genres of filming and especially in specialists subjects we carry out in chromakey work.


Please feel free to comment and let us know what topics you would like us to 'deconstruct'.


For any enquiries or bookings, please get in touch.


Regards

BBC 'So You Think You Can Dance' - Tutorials

For BBC's series 'So You Think You Can Dance' we were brought in to shoot 13 x dance tutorials with the series choreographers. From Cha Cha, Waltz to Hip Hop and Disco, we covered the lot. These all were to support the series being TX'd and went online as part of the S.Y.T.Y.C.D website's goodies.

Sisco warm up for one of the tutorials.

Down time in between shots.

I love the catchlights our 'kisslite' gives for this type of filming... very soft and wrap around.

Shot all on location we provided 2 x HD camera crews shooting on jibs and dollies with an EFP lighting package and for the main key and fill we went with follow spots to move with the talent.

It was a very tight schedule on these shoots with an output of about 3 dances per location scheduled over 5 days,...however we managed to complete the series in only 3 days of shooting.

In this example, Charlotte Stevens puts you through the paces to learn a DISCO routine.

 ... and here Sisco Gomes runs you through a POP routine... for the ladies!

So dust of your glam rags, sparkle you shoes and take to the floor!

DOP On Another Green Screen Chromakey Shoot

Une Herzer, our DOP has worked a lot over the years with London Film Studios, Broadley Studios.

They had a green screen shoot they asked to have him run for them for US client Staples Advantage. During the day we shot 2 series of PTC links for their various services.

Using a favoured wrap-around lighting rig 

For the size of the studio, 20,000 watts of light would be a tad much, however Une wanted a soft 'wrap-around' light with double baffled sources for both Key and Fill, that meant 2 x 5ks off the top.

The final results were VERY nice... wrapped early which the clients liked too!

A great place to film where in the past we have booked ALL of our 'BBC Training' shoots there as well as several commercials too... well recommended location.