Starving Artist's Guide to Studio Portraiture: Working with Panels

So I hope y'all went out to Home Depot and made some PVC light panels of your own? Shame on you if you haven't, go here and come back and I'll show you how they are used to shoot a glamour shot of a gorgeous model with plumbing implements (*giggle* stop it! lets be mature about this!! Geee)

I'm going to try explaining the setup in a different way this time. I'll go through the setup one light at a time explaining exactly what's the purpose of each one. I'll also go by the order they were placed on the set.

Lets start by looking at our diagram. Yeah that's right, Picasso's got nothing on me.



(click on the picture for a bigger version)

It's a bit crowded but it's technically a two-lights setup, with an Alienbee 800 (Light A) on the right and a portable Sunpak 383 (Light B) on the left. The background is a dark gray seemless paper and the model is Dina Zaki (aka Blondie).

Note: I won't tell you how far the lights are from the model because distance is a very relative thing - it depends on how powerful your light is, how soft you want it, how much of is lost from the diffusion fabrics etc.

Light A: This is our key light, our main source of light. It was placed high enough as to allow it to cast a downward nose shadow on Blondie's face. You don't want upward shadows unless it's a scary, zombie scene.

Diffusion Panel: Light A was very harsh so I decided to place the freshly-made light panel with white rip stop nylon fabric stretched over. I made sure it was placed a bit toward the camera to get that "wrap-around" effect. (I'll write more on this later as it is a confusing concept for a lot of people).

Black Flag: The problem with Light A is that it spilled over the Diffusion Panel and lit the background. I wanted the gray seemless background to be dark so I had to put another light panel this time with black rip stop nylon to block the unwanted spill.

Reflector: The right side of Blondie was too dark so I added a white reflector (white foamcore) to brighten the shadow. That helped somewhat but it still wasn't enough. I had two solutions: first is to move the reflector closer which I couldn't have done because it would have shown in the camera. The second solution was to move Light A bit forward (toward the camera) so around 3/4 of it would shine pass the diffusion fabric and into the reflector. Yup that worked.

Update: Well another solution is to add yet another light but that's for losers and people who don't know how to use what they have efficiently :P Not to mention another light would complicate our setup a whole lot more and reduce our already depleted bank account.

Light B: The picture looked pretty good but the gray background was a bit meh. We needed more glam so I used a Sunpak 383 with orange gel to sex things up!

With the lighting all spiced up and ready, we started shooting while "nasty girls" was playing on the stereo.

In retrospect, that was a rather bad choice of music....



















That's Blondie giving me the one-fingered salute. She's such a MEANY!