W.G. Rowland wrote:
I've been looking at full body lighting a lot recently and I'm wondering about mixing modifiers.. 

I'm not talking about different modifiers on key and fill, but using multiple lights and multiple modifiers on key to get a desired effect on your main light (say broad on the body, but more detailed shadow/highlight in the face..)

Anyway, the concept is simple enough, but I haven't come across anything about it in my reading, and I'm wondering about gotchas that may come up like overlapping spill and so on..

Any thoughts?

Look at a lot of Playboy studio lit shots. Broad light source on the body, grid or fresnel on the face. It's very common.

I don't shoot much full length, but I also mix it up just on faces sometimes.

Brooks Ayola wrote:

Look at a lot of Playboy studio lit shots. Broad light source on the body, grid or fresnel on the face. It's very common.

I don't shoot much full length, but I also mix it up just on faces sometimes.

This is the stuff that makes me wish I could have gone to school..  Books stay too general.. And these are the specifics that come from time and practice.. And I just don't like wasting model's time testing lights out..

W.G. Rowland wrote:
[ And I just don't like wasting model's time testing lights out..

Just use anything 3D as your model....

I learned to light paint shooting dead flowers...  sure... I had no ide of what was comming my way in terms of movement... but.. hey.. at least I knew 80% of what was going to happen.

and..(with regard to mixed lighting and using stand-ins) yeh.. it's not that easy... the real deal is never like the props...


and spill... that's the territory of cinefoil... wonderful BLACK thick aluminum foil. Makes for great impromptu snoots when in a pinch.

Noah wrote:

Just use anything 3D as your model....

I learned to light paint shooting dead flowers...  sure... I had no ide of what was comming my way in terms of movement... but.. hey.. at least I knew 80% of what was going to happen.

and..(with regard to mixed lighting and using stand-ins) yeh.. it's not that easy... the real deal is never like the props...


and spill... that's the territory of cinefoil... wonderful BLACK thick aluminum foil. Makes for great impromptu snoots when in a pinch.

Oh I've resorted to using some scary damned stuff for light tests...

commart wrote:
One "gotcha" that gets me when I see it is having two forms of catchlights in the subject's eyes, which is more of a 'lookee there' then a problem.

Another might have to do with mixing or undermining intentions by, for example, using a beauty dish as a key -- that gentle bright puff of light -- and something "hot"--a reflector, no scrim--for a fill.  However, I'd find it odd of anyone set up that way who didn't know what he was doing.

I've never been pestered by that single catchlight thing.  I know some people obsess over it.. And it makes SOME sense outdoors..  But indoors there's nothing natural about light, so I see no realistic expectation that there should only be one catchlight in an eye.. In fact that often looks false to me.

I never have been able to watch the movie Good Night and Good Luck through and follow the plot because I spend the whole time looking at the lighting and the catchlights..

Photography is corrupting.

Meehan wrote:
Or heck, forget the broad main light and just grid, grid, grid! Barn door, barn door barn door. Or snoot, door, grid. Or bounce, mirror, and ambient.

Remember when it was hot in fashion images to reflect the sun light from a mirror on outdoor shots? (small hot areas) I used to think that was the coolest thing.

i love reflecting the sun.  i usually use larger reflector boards or mirrors though.

several times i've set small mirrors outside going to a reflector inside:  sun->mirror->reflector->subject!

W.G. Rowland wrote:

I've never been pestered by that single catchlight thing.  I know some people obsess over it.. And it makes SOME sense outdoors..  But indoors there's nothing natural about light, so I see no realistic expectation that there should only be one catchlight in an eye.. In fact that often looks false to me.

I never have been able to watch the movie Good Night and Good Luck through and follow the plot because I spend the whole time looking at the lighting and the catchlights..

Photography is corrupting.

For people who spend a great deal of time "looking", you would think "vision" would not be an issue, but it almost always is.  I don't think you turn out bad pictures or essentially dull ones, but the interest in technique often seems to want to put the solution before the problem, which rather makes the problem the problem.

commart wrote:

For people who spend a great deal of time "looking", you would think "vision" would not be an issue, but it almost always is.  I don't think you turn out bad pictures or essentially dull ones, but the interest in technique often seems to want to put the solution before the problem, which rather makes the problem the problem.

The vision is fine..  I have an idea (actually about 2 dozen).. I have a shoot coming..  I ask the questions I think will help.

Brooks Ayola wrote:

Look at a lot of Playboy studio lit shots. Broad light source on the body, grid or fresnel on the face. It's very common.

I don't shoot much full length, but I also mix it up just on faces sometimes.

I think we've had this conversation before and I posted a lighting diagram?  Anyway check out the Jonessa pictures in my port as they were lit that way.  It's not one broad source with one grid, it's lots of grids and snoots providing a slight overlap coverage and then you add one large source just to soften the shadows.  So, for example, if you're doing the playboy thing, you will grid the face, the chest, the lower abdomen and each thigh.  Add to that a rim light on each side and a hair light.  Depending on pose you might also spot the calfs.  On those shots I had nine lights in play.

Isaac Klotz wrote:

i love reflecting the sun.  i usually use larger reflector boards or mirrors though.

several times i've set small mirrors outside going to a reflector inside:  sun->mirror->reflector->subject!

The only issue being the squint factor. It's hard to find a model that can stare down reflected sunlight without squinting too much.

Meehan wrote:
So we good here WG?

Plenty.. I have stuff to play with.

Thanks all..

(I always assume that's implied, but maybe I should say out loud more.)