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PLUS: Donate any amount and I’ll send you a link to the hi-res print version of my studio lighting book. ||
Whether you like coloured gel photography or not, there's certainly a huge amount that can be learned from using them, and that knowledge can be applied to other areas of your photography to great effect.
When you start mixing multiple coloured gels together in an image, all sorts of variables start appearing that simply aren't present when you shoot with white light alone.
Gels, in my opinion, are one of the most unforgiving disciplines to master in lighting. They don't abide by the same rule book as white light and can often create puzzling results that leave you confused. Most of our entire photographic journey revolves around shooting with white light, so to suddenly change that can be a big stumbling block for many. For a start, gels have no "correct" exposure; they laugh in the very face of light meters as their resulting appearance is based purely on your preference rather than right and wrong; plus, colours can also get really crazy when they gang up. Mixing two or more gels together can create an almighty ruckus of confusing colour combos that, again, disregards the rule book on what we already know about colour mixing. For example, if you mix red, blue, and green gels together, you get white……..wait, what?!
People think, "oh, I gotta master white light photography before I play with gels". Not true - gelled lighting is an addition to creative lighting, sure, but you can also simply use gelled lighting to see what's wrong with the lighting in your images.
So, is jumping on the gelled lighting struggle-bus worth it? Sure, you get some pretty pictures, but it's not for everybody. What can you learn from gelled lighting that can be applied to your regular white lighting?
Reading the Light
I aim to briefly touch on "reading the light" in this article. I don't have a better term for it, but what I’m getting at is that I see so many badly lit white-lighting portraits out there, and the photographer clearly can't see the error with their lighting. When I say "bad lighting", I am not referring to simply my opinion of good and bad lighting; I'm referring to things like crossed shadows, underlit, dark eyes, no catchlights etc. Yes, these rules can be broken for artistic merit, but not when you're taking classic headshots or corporate portraits - that is the time for clean, flattering lighting, and not the aforementioned spaghetti junction of nose shadows and overexposed fill lights. If they’d taken these badly lit portraits with gels, the shocking reality of how funky their lighting was, would be all too apparent.
So here are three raw files of simple headshots. I've seen all three styles being used commercially, and although there is nothing technically wrong with any of them when they're put side-by-side like this, it should be pretty easy to see which one looks a lot worse than the others. On the left we have a single key light, in the middle we have a key and fill light and on the right we have the same again but with too much power on the fill. If somebody had taken this right-hand shot at my studio, it's my opinion that they would need to be spoken to about some much-needed re-training as I feel this level of lighting is unacceptable in any situation.
Let's just take a classic, simple headshot: one key light above and a fill light below. Both lights are white, so it's almost impossible to see where the lighting from the key light falls on the face and where the light from the fill-light falls. Throw some gels on there, and suddenly, the reality of where each of those lights is falling is all too apparent.
Let's take another look at that same lighting scenario, but this time, we'll take a shot with a coloured gel on the key light and a coloured gel on the fill light. It now becomes a lot more apparent where each of those two lights is falling on our subject's face. We can clearly see that our orange fill light is catching some unflattering sections of the face that weren't readily apparent before we added the gels.
At this stage, I'm not even referring to exposure and how powerful your key light should be; I'm simply talking about where the light is falling. So, what exactly are we looking for? How do we know when the lighting is falling in the right place? First and foremost, you need to remember that I'm referring to lighting people and portraits - lighting is a synergy between light and pose. The best lighting in the world will look crap if the model is looking the wrong way, so you have to manage both correctly, but the one thing that all of this has in common is you, the photographer being able to "read the light".
Those who have followed my work for a while or have attended one of my workshops will know that I am constantly looking for "planes of light." When I say this, I mean having as large a section of colour and tone as possible while still having engaging lighting. What I am trying to avoid are lots of tiny broken sections of light and colour that are busy and visually confusing to the human eye, which in turn detracts from the overall image.
If you look at some of my work, even the most visually complicated lighting is still very clean. I always try to keep my colours clearly separated, and as you can see in the images above, all of the lighting in my shots is separated planes of light.
Ok, so we've established that we're looking for large planes of light and not smaller broken sections of intersecting light and shadow. Now, let's put that knowledge into practice, review some of the raw files from one of my gelled lighting workshops, and see what I am looking for when I choose my favourite shots. Remember, I said that I am looking for large planes of colour, and I am desperately trying to avoid small overlapping sections of light.
You can give it a go yourself with the small group of images below. Can you choose the ‘best’ shots?
Here, we have a selection of raw files from my shoot. I'd like you to go through and mentally select the shots that show the best synergy between lighting and pose. Answers below. Click to enlarge
I gave you a small selection, and it should be relatively easy for you now that you know what you're looking for. But if you're still not sure, let’s take a look below to see which ones I kept and which ones I discarded.
In these images above you can see which ones I kept and which ones I didn't. Click to enlarge
Did you get them all right? To be fair, a lot of the selected ones I have already retouched and published, so you might have recognised some of them subconsciously anyway. If you didn't get them all correct, or you're just curious as to why I kept certain shots in and not others, then take a look below and see that I visually describe what I am looking for with those "planes of light".”
So here are my favourites, and above, I've outlined (literally) what I'm looking for with those "planes of light." You can see how my model clearly separates the lighting in these shots. She positioned herself to literally separate the key light and the fill light with parts of her body.
In these shots, I've outlined what just wasn't working lighting-wise on the model's body. This isn't the model's fault; she can't see how the light is falling on her, so it's going to be up to you first to know what you're looking for and then translate that to her. You should start to see what I mean now when I say "busy lighting". In these shots, the key and the fill light are mixing in awkward ways on the body, creating patches and pools of light that are visually distracting from the shots as a whole.
I hope that now you have a better understanding of the term "clean lighting" and some things to look for when you're trying to "read the light." Granted, this only touches the surface of what great lighting looks like, but I feel it is an important lesson to learn to see the light, and gelled lighting helps make that more obvious to the eye.
Bad lighting is something that is made all too apparent when using gels.
Another important point here is that it's not just about the lighting; remember, we said it's a crucial synergy between lighting and pose. All of the shots above are taken with the same setup, but it's just how the pose interacts with that light that can make or break a shot.
So, how does this apply to your regular white-lighting portraits? It's simply an exercise in seeing how the light falls on the model. Remember that this crazy-coloured lighting above is still just a classic key and fill clamshell lighting setup, but it goes a long way to show you what that light is doing, even if you can't see it with regular white light.
Like everybody else, I spent many years shooting with my favourite "go-to" white lighting setups. It wasn't until years later that I applied gels to those setups and saw for the first time what the light was actually doing. If you hate gelled lighting, then that is fine, but do not underestimate the power it has to improve your skills as a photographer with regular lighting.
If you get even remotely good with gelled lighting and then decide to never touch them again, I guarantee your white lighting skills will go through the roof.
So, what do you guys think? Have you played with gels yourself and discovered things about your lighting that weren't apparent before? Are you tempted to throw some coloured gels on one of your classic white light setups and see what it looks like? If you do, then I'd love to hear about it. Reach out in the comments below.
Also, did you find this type of article useful? Do you find it interesting to see my thoughts on my image selection process? Did you find it helped when I outlined the areas of lighting separation? Would you like to see me break down other shoots in this way? Let me know in the comments below.
Finally, a big thank you to Amber Tutton, the main model in this article. All of these lighting example shots were taken at my recent Gelled Lighting Workshop with her, where I talked attendees through this "reading the light" process and how to communicate it to the model. If you're interested in coming along for the complete breakdown and to learn everything there is to know about gelled lighting, please check out my Gelled Lighting Workshop page.
Further reading on gels
An article on how to create perfectly lit gelled backgrounds in your shot Creating the Perfect Gelled Background
…and the follow up article to that, Keeping Perfectly Lit Gelled Backgrounds
JHP Livestreams…
I livestream every other Tuesday night via YouTube and there I answer your questions, critique your shots, take community images into Photoshop to work on them and discuss all manner of lighting tips and techniques. I look forward to seeing you and your work there real soon. Jake Hicks Photography - YouTube
All of my more advanced lighting classes are now available online!
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All of my more advanced lighting classes are now available online! ||
If you liked some of the gelled lighting shots in this article and you'd be interested in learning how to take those shots yourself or you're simply interested in finding out everything there is to know about Gelled Lighting then why not check one of my workshops: Gelled Lighting Workshop
