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https://www.modelmayhem.com/p.php?thread_id=252362

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ok question:
Stephen, I read that you sometimes use up to 9 lights, but is there a setup you can recommend for someone with 2 or 3 lights that will provide crisp highlights and dramatic shadows (that still hold detail - creating good "modeling" on the face)? I know some basic configurations, but I'm not sure that they are living up to my expectations. Does it sound likely that my small working space (with white walls) is allowing too much light to bounce around and fill in the shadows, creating flatter light?

In a practical sense, I'm wondering if I should cover my walls with black material to absorb stray light.

OK,  lets start at the end, you do not need to cover your walls, several things come into play, first you could simply use some black cards, as flags to block light from bouncing toward the model.  Second, if you are getting a lot of light bouncing back and filling in the model when attempting to get a shadowed lighting I am going to say that you may have your lights too far from the subject and moving them closer may eliminate that effect and also create a faster falloff and more dramatic effect.

Now, I have said I use 9 lights often, I also use far more lights and have also used 1 light, so its not how many its more the placement of them.  Its true that you sometimes need more than one light to accomplish something specific and at times its much easier to do with more lights than less.  That all said lets get to the 2-3 light ideas. 

Dark background?  than you likely need to back light and have three to work with on a subject.  You can use a very standard beauty light which would be one high above and one below filling in a clamshell lighting but be careful as this is what I call Fat Lighting,  or flat light,   why do I call it Fat lighting?  it creates a beautiful glow, and the underlight that fills in the face and eyes and shadows does a great job of making the skin look good and making older models look even younger, but it also takes aways shadows and causes the face to lose some definition, so now the model needs to have a more contoured face with higher cheekbones and a more angular look to her and the make up can help by creating some contour.  THese are things that can be combated with lighting and shadows but this lighting style lends itself to removing those shadows and creating a fattening of the features

I am not saying that a round face is bad or good, but its something to be conscious of when using that style of lighting.

You can also use a reflector as a fill underneath, instead of a light source, its not as easily controlled but can be just as effective, you can use flat white, glossy white, silver, mirror, even a gray for differing levels of reflectivity and fill, a light source will be more controllable as you can simply set up the light and turn it on and up or down to adjust for the fill level.

Now thats not very shadowed lighting.  How about a shadowy light, try a beauty dish up with grid close, maybe within 3-4  feet from the face on one side slightly at a near 45degree angle, no fill, use the modeling light to place and angle the face to get the shadows where you want them.  If you need a fill you have one, as well you may want a hairlight and or background lights.

Perhaps you can add to your question and point to a few images you like so I can better direct this answer. 


Stephen Eastwood
http://www.StephenEastwood.com

It seems like I'm using my lights from too far away, and I think I need to focus on lighting my subject and background separately... I figured I couldn't do it properly in my small space and with just two lights. One is a 35" octabox at about 5 feet away from my subject, and sometimes I add a 32" shoot-through umbrella for fill/evening out the exposure on the background. I just need to experiment more, but I don't have many willing subjects.


OK there are many ways to light.  For beauty there are just as many times 2  

that said one style of flawless fat or flat lighting which is great and works very, very well and is often used on many beauty shoots and covers is perfect for faces that are beauty shaped, more angular, high cheekbones, good proportions, or a face that has something (generally hair) helping to shape and contour the face.  This may be accomplished many ways but a very common one that deviates from the rest of what I will discuss now is a very large lightsource, quite often an octabank or octodome 7' or a very large softbox behind the photographer, you often see the photographer in front of this large lightsource in the catchlights.  This is a very soft and very flat and filing light.  It works great!  Its not the most in shadow and control but for a flawless overall flat shadowless lighting its beautiful! 

Now on to what you asked about.  A small space and smaller lights and lightshaping tools and more control of shadows to light, shape, contour and sculpt which is my most often preferred way to shoot anything other than clean commercial basic cosmetic ad campaigns.

For that use a smaller source and move it in closer, and than move it closer than a bit closer and when its in your way using a long lens slide it out just a bit till you barely catch it and have to duck under it to shoot.    thats fine, from there you will use less power, faster recycle what a bonus????  once you try that you can start to see how moving it little further out changes the effects, than more, than back in  get a feel for it!  get use to it, don't be afraid, it only annoys and blinds the model in front of it, your nice and safe behind it which is pretty cool




If I could point to one picture that I like, it would be the one used in the tutorial here: http://www.enigma-photos.com/AmyTutorial

that was lit more for a lot of post work from what it seems I would do similar in a shot something like this  http://plasticmagonline.com/misc/extras … 1303v2.jpg
or like these
https://img5.modelmayhem.com/061204/00/ … 830c9f.jpg
http://photographersportfolio.com/canon … 2d8797.jpg
http://photographersportfolio.com/canon … 2d8372.jpg
I am not going through my site so if you see anything more like what you are after let me know. 

Now the actuality of how I did the first shot is not at issue, I used many lights, mainly because I have many and I can, but it could have been accomplished with a far more limited setup and careful placement so that is what I will address. 

rim lights and mains.  This is lit with a white background but that woudl best be done with 4 lights, although 3 could do it with some tweaking and a little scrim/flagging. 

Lets start with the mains, I use two, one main beautydish and grid, overhead directly infront of the model, (a great friend and wonderful model, photographer and lawyer Miss Amy Dunn ) and I used a second below a small stripbox with grid.  You woudl replace this second lower light with a reflector, I would suggest a glossy white card, available for 7.00 at 30x40inch from the setshop among others.  Why glossy white card instead of foamcore?  I like it better, its glossier but not as shiny as silver or mirror and soft enough to be flexible whereas foamcore would not be so easily bent and curved.  (in general I have many flat and glossy white, flat and glossy black, silver, light gray, shiny dented silver, mirror, gold flat, gold mirror, copper flat, copper mirror cards and foamcore black and white plus a bunch of others various things that can be used as reflectors and scrims, bounces, as well as actual fold up reflectors and panel reflectors in white, black, silver, gold, zigzag silver/gold, sunfire, white translucent, shiny white)

Now back to our program, we have you with a main, maybe a beauty dish and grid, but you can substitute an umbrella, white or soft silver, and a glossy whitecard below angled to reflect the light to fill in the shadows and curved slightly to provide a nice wrap around under the chin. 

Are you on white?  later!  lets stick to basics first.  Say the background will be lit separate or not lit at all, you now need to get that nice wrap around rim/hair lighting.  Its much easier with several rims up and low, but you don't have them so we won't make you all jealous and I won't say "it's good to have a lot of crap when you want it" which would be mean    Instead I will say lets work on good placement of your remaining two lights for the best wrap around. 

While I never woudl do this, for this its a good solution, use umbrellas, they are hard to control but spread nicely, softboxes can work and control better but you would need two big ones or two long strips for optimal placement, and thats more than two umbrellas.  So take the umbrellas behind and slightly above the headlevel of the model, turn off your main modeling lights which will help see where the light is hitting, and move them behind and up with the center likely toward the rear of the models head and you will start to see (use a mirror in front of her so you can see what you would be seeing if standing where you will be shooting from, it helps!)  when you get the light to wrap around the top and sides of the face you have it right.  Check how much is spilling on the front of the face, if it is, flag it off with a black card, or do what I do to maximize the light, use a card that is black and white or black and silver back to back have the black toward the front facing the model and silver angled to reflect the light back away from the front of the models face where you do not want it and back to the sides of her head where you do! 

repeat for second side and rinse and repeat  no forget the last rinse and repeat I thought I was writing a shampoo bottle label for a second, never mind. 

now you have two rims that wrap nicely adjust the power to an exposure that is between 2/3rd and 1/1/2 stops brighter than your mains.  Now set your mains, and turn the modeling lights on so you can see it looking how you like it only yellower and not exactly brighter on the sides unless the modeling lights all adjust and track and you do that, I never do I like them all as bright as they go.   

Take a shot at the desired exposure and the result should begin to show you a close representation of what you see in the first shot without the bright white background.  (I did not forget that just getting to it soon)  At this point you will need to adjust the wrap lights to be exactly how much hotter than you mains depending on how bright you want the sides to appear, I was bright, it can be less, almost not noticeable or brighter and burn out, there are not rules here, I am not a photo competition, doubt I woudl ever pass let alone win one, never even saw one actually, and to be quite blunt I don't care about them   I want it to look how I want it, if that means my blacks are black??? strange as that sounds, they call it blocking I think, I call it black where it should be black, what do I know?  and if I want my whites white?  strange as that sounds thats called blown highlights or something?  I call it white and brighter white that can not really be brighter unless its backlit   So its up to you how you want it. 

Now thats three lights. 


WAIT!!!! the background is not white? 

Oops

OK so thats a little tougher, not much, but takes a bit more adjusting.  Now that you tried what I just said.....You did try that right?   you get a feel for what and how to do it by feel a bit already, so now what we need to do is place a white behind her and having no fourth flash  (that really would help here you know   but you said 3 not 4 even if number 4 was like a 25$ little tiny cheapo strobe slave thingy,  hint, hint )  So now you need the same basic as its working so well for you so far, only you will need to angle the wrap umbrellas to the back more which will require moving them around so that now the center is at the back more and you can use the feathered edge of the side to do the rim/wrap lighting with more of the brunt going toward the back, a silver to the other rear of that umbrella will direct even more toward the back and when you have them adjusted correctly you can get a hotter background than wrap, it takes some work to get perfect in camera (we are not saying you cannot adjust a tad in post but this is lighting not faking it later 101 ) another easier way to accomplish it but takes more thought and rigging is to use a fabric which can be translucent white but I woudl prefer a black fishnet or lace, and stretch it top down on each side to actually feather (and cut or scrim, hence reduce) the light hitting the model in relation to the amount hitting the background.  this all takes a bit more thought and work but once you do it I swear its easier than having to type it all I know that now (trust me on this), and in the future should just do a youtube clip for you




I know this sounds kind of lame and non-specific, but I just want lighting that will give me high-quality images that are conducive to high-quality post production. Stephen, you provide many shots like this in your portfolio... I am especially wondering about the pictures shown in your point and shoot thread (https://www.modelmayhem.com/p.php?thread_id=249588). Using a P&S camera just makes me feel like amazing shots like that are very accessible, I would love to hear how you lit and processed them.


I will get to this later, check back, its almost 3 am here typing it will likely result in more incoherent text than what I just typed above 

Oh and I saw the open thread,  stay away from a 50mm lens!   OK thats bad of me   but anyway stay away from a 50mm lens!   its too short for an attractive perspective on a face up close in fact I do not think a face looks good any closer than 5 feet so use a lens that allows that, here is a chart to get a feel for that.  And yes I like long, I use on a 35mm fullframe the equivalent of a 200-350mm lens for most of what I do, on that point and shoot the lens was as long as it goes which was the equivalent of 210mm, and hell thats a point and shoot. 



OK real world real numbers

all 35mm full frame

Lens tip to subject, not making allowance for background here.

Lens tip to subject  7 feet

300mm     11inches
200mm     17inches
135mm     24inches
85mm       40inches
50mm       65inches


average head from  tip of head to chin 10 1/2 inches

1 inch above head to nipple line of average large (tall) woman,
average 6'2inch male,  18 1/2 inches

Now realize,  if the background were behind them by several 3 1/2 feet the angle of view would mean if you gave 1 inch head clearance your image would have aproximately 5 inches above the head in frame.

Look at my work and the close up face shots for some great examples of long lenses and the flattened face you all say is present and tell me if a bigger nose and further backset ears would be better for you.


Stephen Eastwood
http://www.StephenEastwood.com