Just a chandelier

Sometimes you need a lot, and sometimes not

Having an extra background system in your studio is great.
You can use it to hang fabrics from and create more depth in your set, but you can also use it hang a chandelier from.

During the workshop “alternative lighting” I’m not using strobes.
All the shots have to be done with continuous lighting, and although I do use our Nanlite led strips as fill or mainlight in some setups, the idea is to use light sources that are not designed for photography. Like a chandelier.

In this setup I’m using a great background from ClickBackdrops
But the lighting you see is just the chandelier. The trick is have the right distance.
You don’t want the chandelier to blow out too much (you can always use the “highlights” slider in Lightroom for some adjustments of course), but you also want a nice spread of the model/set.

Placing the light closer means it will fall off more quickly, moving the light further away will mean it spreads out more over the set.
Because I wanted something special, we placed the light close to the model, and I asked Felisa to lay on the floor for…. well extra “drama”.

Angle of the shot

One of the things I always explain during the workshops is the use of angles.
Not only the angle under which you shoot but also the lens.
When you use a longer lens, it will compress the scene, when you use a wider lens it will exaggerate the perspective.
This is one of the reasons I love the 24-70 f2.8 Sony G-master, it can give me a wide angle and compression effect.
Something I’m using here.

First let’s take a look at the shot straight on.

Nothing wrong with this one.
Love the way Felise poses, and the light spreads out just enough over the set.

But let’s experiment a bit with a different pose, where the model reaches out for the chandelier.

Personally I like this one a bit more.
But it’s still pretty “flat”.
So let’s move a bit too the side and use a slighty wider angle.
In the next shot I did add a small bit off the background because when you shoot under an angle the background was just a bit too short.
Luckily now a days in Photoshop or even Lightroom this is no problem anymore.

Perspective is “everything”

Besides shooting it from a slightly different angle, with a wider angle I also moved the camera slightly more down.
This gives you more of the chandelier, and for me it draws the viewer into the frame much more than the images shot straight from the front.

I think that with a lot of photoshoots we are happy when we see the results and they are great, like the first images.
It took me a few shoots before I started to experiment with different positions and loved the control you have over the contrast, but being able to combine it with a more wide angle shot is opening a lot of creative options. Especially when working with small sets.

Workshops

Want to learn everything about light control?
Want to visit a workshop where it’s not just shooting a model with a fixed lighting setup, but see how the setup is build and adjusted to the taste of the group?
And of course learn how to work with poses, backgrounds, small sets, styling, retouching and a lot more…..

If this all sounds awesome, visit fotografie-workshops.nl and book your workshop.
If you don’t speak Dutch, no problem, let us know a few weeks in advance and we can switch the workshop to English.
Not possible to travel to The Netherlands?
We got you covered with our 1:1 online workshop.
We have a full streaming setup in our studio. 4 detail cameras and of course the retouching software so you can see every detail and of course ask questions during the day. Plus you get all the RAW files after the workshop.