Playing with light is always fun.
Most of the time people will however not include the light source, in my opinion including the light source can be very interesting, especially when you take of your sun hood (or even better use a cheap lens) which will get you some nice lens flares.
In todays post some images from a workshop I did with Nadine in which I shot straight into the light source for some more extreme lighting effects.
Light is our language, it’s what we use to tell our stories…..
Now there is always a lot of debate about which lights to use, what brand, what quality, what soft box etc.
In reality however light can be used from almost everything, as long as you understand what it does and how it behaves you can actually create the looks you want with…. well even a simple lightbulb.
During the workshop working on location we normally go outside (on location) but because of the predictable Dutch weather (meaning loads of rain that day) we decided to stay inside the studio and “mimic” a location. One of the things I show during this workshop is working with available light, so how did we solve this in the studio? well by using a very simple household lightbulb.
The next images are all shot with just that one single lightbulb.
So the next time you do a photoshoot don’t think that you need the most expensive gear, but play around with something simple, maybe something wonderful will come out.
Model/styling : Nadine
During a session (for me) it’s very important to capture something that is “unique” although I know that everything has already been done at least once or twice (probably more) I still try to steer away from the “standard” beauty shot, and don’t get me wrong… there is nothing wrong with a beauty shot but for me… well it’s a bit “boring” to do myself.
So how do you approach something like this.
I always try to get something from my model, it can be a very subtle expression or something more.
In the following shot I went for the more relaxed expression.
Just let the model look away and let her think of someone that is coming over the hill, the fun part is that every model will give you a different expression.
We all know the sun, it’s that big bright thing in the sky.
It’s almost always there but still a lot of people are afraid of it to use it into their photography.
We all know the expression that you should shoot during certain time periods because otherwise the sun is not “nice” for the final shot. Well I agree with this in certain situations however with model photography I have to say that I love to shoot with real harsh light.
Today I share some images from Marie that were shot with just the sun as the light source, as you can see the shadows are really adding to the shot.
The difference between the two sets is that in one set I metered for the face and in the other set I metered towards in between the model and the sun, this creates two different looks from the same situation as you can see. You can of course also later do this in Lightroom or Photoshop but I strongly believe that you can better create it right on the set.
Anyway for today a tip that you should not be afraid for shooting in the bright harsh sunlight.
But make sure that you watch the shadow “play” it should really add something to the shot.
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