My circumstances don't always allow me to experiment with lighting on the grand stage. So when an opportunity presents itself, I take advantage of the situation. In this case, the subject was the director of a local theater production, and my editor wanted a photo to accompany an upcoming article.
Sometimes the Ghosts of Past Assignments come back to haunt me In this case, I had tried to illustrate a theater coach who was trying to maximize the impact of a fight scene in a modern urban remake of Macbeth. As it turned out, I couldn't achieve the look I was trying for, and the placement of the subjects (three total) looked ungainly and contrived. I scrapped the image and went instead with a photo of the Combat Coach isolated on the stage. I made the photo during a lighting test, and was never meant to be submitted. It turned out to be a lifesaver when my planned group photo failed to deliver. I learned a valuable lesson: Always make a second shot with a different pose in case the planned image doesn't deliver.
For the record, the lighting on this shot was complex. For the subject in the background I used two gridded speedlights, one serving as the key light and the other the kicker from behind. Once the output was locked in, I alter the exposure by simply moving the lightstands nearer or farther from the subject. In this shot I was able to conceal the particular key light by aligning it behind my main subject's head. For the record, I could have placed a low-output speedlight on the floor in front of my secondary subject and given her some "legs to stand on", My main subject had the usually gridded kick light, in addition to a silver umbrella collapsed around the speedlight to give a more directional key light. Finally, a fill light with a small Lumiquest softbox was placed at my eye live to provide some fill light.
When it came time to make the solo shot, I simply opened the umbrella and used in a conventional manner. Normally I do not use umbrellas in the reflected manner, and did not expect the hard highlights on my subject's head. I could have eliminated one of those hot spots by re-positioning the kick light more to camera left while keeping it out of the frame. The lights that were used to light the background were now positioned to provide a wrap around highlight to my subject's head.
For this shot I located one of the rolling storage cases and pushed it onto the set. To simplify matters, I kept my subject in the same place and rolled the case up to meet him. This simplified the placement of the lights, since they were already in position from the first shot.
Homework: My lighting equipment is still in the trunk of my car, so I may take my main lighting kit to a quiet parking lot and do some serious experimenting. Among those points to ponder:
- How much light do I really lose when using single or multiple grid spots? I had always used them to contain my light spread, but never thought about how much the grids decreased the flash output.
- How bad (or good) are umbrellas used in the conventional reflected manner? I have several silver umbrellas, and frankly, I never use them because I much prefer the light provided by a shoot-through umbrella.
- Finally, I need to better organize the contents of my main rolling lighting case. The zippered pockets in the case lid are really helpful, but I may need to organize the contents for the umpteenth time.
