Sometimes you just want a clean and quick setup to start a shoot off the right way. Sure, you may have a ton of creative ideas in store for later on in the day, but they may be new ideas you’ve never tried before or they may be more experimental. If that’s the case, I always find it smart to start a shoot with a tried and true setup that’s not too tricky to do, quick to setup and provides great shots each and every time.
That way, the team knows that whatever happens from here on out with the more experimental work, we’ve already bagged some killer images and everybody is positive about the setups to come.
What constitutes a ‘simple’ setup?
For me, a simple setup is often 2 or 3 lights that have a lot of flexibility when it comes to light placement and model movement within those lights. Many of my setups require several lights and those lights are often placed in a way that is quite restrictive for model posing. A simple setup uses lights that don’t have to be placed with laser guided accuracy and it often leaves flexibility for headshots, 3/4 length shots and even lens changes as well if needed.
Space and Kit
Another factor of a simple setup for me is the kit and space needed. A simple setup shouldn’t need a lot of room to set it up and ideally it shouldn't need any super technical or niche kit. You can very comfortably achieve the look I’m sharing here today in your living room and with simple kit too, and by simple kit, I mean basic essentials that all portrait photographers should already own.
Keeping it simple, whilst maintaining your personal style
I think if you’re on my site, you know by now that I prefer to add some colour to my shots wherever I can. For the setup I’m sharing today, I’m adding a colour to the fill light. Obviously, you don’t need to add that coloured light if it doesn’t fit the look you’re going for and you could even swop that fill light out to just a reflector if you wanted.
What you’ll need…
3 lights - You could do this with 2 lights. Just swop the fill light out for a reflector if you weren’t going to add a coloured fill.
22” Beauty Dish - This could be substituted for a softbox, but it wont have the directionality of a beauty dish, nor will it give the same final quality of light on the subjects face.
Large Umbrella + Scrim - This is my new favourite combo and I really have fallen in love with how clean this light is as a soft fill-light. Alternatives include a very large softbox, but this will not give the same quality of light in a small space.
Small/Medium Strip Softbox - The only reason I’m recommending a strip softbox here is space restraints. If you're shooting this setup at home, chances are you’re dealing with low ceilings and this strip-box is a great solution to that problem, as you’ll see later on.
Simple Backdrop - For lighting like this and in a small space like this, a hand-painted backdrop is such a great solution. It provides a sense of depth to a shot when you have little room to step back and it provides some much needed separation from subject to background too. You can of course use any backdrop here and you can even make one yourself as explained here: DIY Mottled Backdrop.
The Setup
As always, let’s look at the setup itself and then I’ll explain what’s going on.
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Click to enlarge any of the images above
Camera Settings
Camera - Nikon D850
Lens - AF DC Nikkor 105 F2
Shutter Speed - 1/250th
Aperture - f2.8
ISO - 40
Kelvin - 5900K
Focal Length - 105mm
The Results…
Click to enlarge any of the shots below.
Breaking it Down
As I mentioned, this is fairly simple to setup, but you should still bear a couple of key things in mind before jumping in.
The Key Light
This is our beauty dish and although I used mine with a grid, you can still make this work without one. The trick here is to bring the beauty dish in nice and close to the model, this will keep the white light controlled and will reduce the amount of white light that will spill around the set and contaminate the coloured fill. I did use a mini-boom setup with a C-stand to avoid the light stand appearing in shot, but again this isn’t always necessary as long as the beauty dish is positioned directly in front of the model as much as possible.
The Fill Light
This is our big soft light that is positioned almost behind us and is flooding the room in that soft colour. I’m using a very large 160cm diameter umbrella here, but a slightly smaller one could still work as long as its being diffused enough. My large umbrella is being shone through a large scrim as well and this produces incredibly soft light as a result. The reason for this is because the light is undergoing double-diffusion. The first diffusion happens as the light bounces off the interior of the umbrella and the second level of diffusion happens as that light then passes through the scrim. This level of softness is very hard to recreate with softboxes, especially in small locations like this. The core reason for this is the inherent hot-spots that all softboxes produce thanks to the light being positioned directly towards the subject. Again, this is even more apparent the closer the softbox is to the subject and that isn’t ideal for shooting in small spaces.
The Coloured Fill
As I mentioned at the top, the coloured gel isn’t strictly mandatory, more strongly advised. Yes, this setup works adequately with just a simple white light, but some element of colour is not only advised, but highly encouraged! If the key light is positioned correctly, then the blue fill shouldn’t be noticeable on the subjects face due to the white light from the key simply overpowering it and burning it away. Where the key light creates shadows, the coloured fill light will bathe them in that beautiful steely blue colour. If you’re interested in what coloured gel I used, then its the ‘teal’ gel from my Definitive Colour Pack.
The Separation Light
This final light is the strip-box behind the subject. I’m referring to it as a separation light here, but it could just as easily be called a hair light. Its key job is to add a little dimension to the subject and we’re doing that by including that beautiful bead of highlight across the top of the model. Look again at the images and see how that highlight adds that simple, yet clean separation without dominating the shot with distracting highlights. This is a great example of a separation light as it adds light to the subject just as the shadow from the key starts to creep in on the edge of the body, resulting in a beautiful layer of dimensional light that separates the subject from the darker background behind.
Note: I’m actually hanging this strip-box over the top of the background, but the light-stand is just hidden by the background itself. This is a clever trick to essentially have a top light in your image without the need for a boom that might ordinarily be a pain to use in tight spaces. Just bring the backdrop forward slightly and place the strip-box light stand right up against it and hang the head and strip-box over the top so that it’s pointing at the model below.
Kit Used…
Please note that I’ve included affiliate links below so I will benefit (albeit minimally) from the sales of any of these products should you purchase them. To that end, please feel free to use my discount code ‘HICK5-OFF’ at Essential Photo to receive a discount on any purchase via their site.
Beauty Dish
This is arguably my favourite modifier for portraits and I find it hard to believe that once you try one yourself that you wont immediately agree. There are a couple of things to keep in mind when purchasing a beauty dish though and first among them is the size. I use a 22” (~160cm) and I really can’t recommend anything smaller than this for portraits and fashion. There are smaller beauty dishes available, but I would urge you to avoid those if you’re using them for portraits alone. The Bowens beauty dish I use is sadly no longer made, but this one here is the closest alternative I could find size-wise at 21.6”.
Secondly; many beauty dishes come in either white or silver interiors. The white interior produces a slightly softer look compared to the silver which is a slightly colder, more contrasty look. I’d probably recommend the silver for fashion and editorial and the white for more traditional portraits of corporate or family headshots.
Silver Beauty Dish
This one comes with a diffusion cover too, but if you need a grid, be sure to select one that includes that as well. If you prefer a white one, be sure to check the interior colour of the beauty dish before purchasing.
Large Umbrella & Scrim
I appreciate this may seem like overkill, but this second light does need to be very soft so as to not cast shadows on my background from the model. The further I move the subject from the background to reduce shadows, the greater the difference in exposure between subject and background becomes and I really want to limit that whilst only using two lights in a small space. This large umbrella and scrim combo produces very soft light with almost no hotspot, even in tight spaces.
Potential Alternatives
You could get pretty close to this soft look with simply the large umbrella with a diffusion cover, failing that (and I’m loathed to say this as it really won’t look the same), you could use a large softbox. Just be mindful that you will cast shadows from that and you’ll have a hotspot, especially when used in tight quarters and close to the subject. I really would urge you to consider buying a large umbrella over a large softbox to see the difference for yourself.
Large Umbrella
Although I wouldn’t personally class this as a ‘parabolic’ umbrella, it’s still an excellent modifier for illuminating large rooms or for producing very soft lighting.
Large Scrim
I originally got this for cinematic studio lighting, but now I use it on nearly every shoot that requires a soft light. This scrim produces noticeably cleaner and softer light over simply using a softbox or umbrella alone.
Strip-Boxes
I rarely recommend softboxes (strip-boxes included), due to the almost unavoidable hotspot they produce. Strip-boxes do have their uses though and that includes providing directional soft light in small spaces. I often use a strip-box overhead in a horizontal orientation like you see me doing here, when I have very low ceilings. Maybe I can’t get the light far enough back to spread the light or maybe I can’t get the light high enough to spread it. A strip-box is the next best thing and its worth having a couple of small/mediums ones in your kit for that reason.
Strip-box
A small strip-box would be around 30cm x 90cm, this one at 120cm wide is a good medium sized one. I really cannot recommend ones much bigger than this though as the light simply doesn’t spread to the edges of larger versions.
Colour Gels
One of the key features of this setup was with the addition of colour. The colour adds another dimension to this look and whether that’s with this teal blue or another colour, the extra layer of interest is a great way to add more interest to your image.
Gel Packs
I’ve been selling my own gel packs for many, many years now, so if you still don’t have them, follow the link below to take a look. The teal gel I used in this setup is in the Definitive Gel Pack.
Hand Painted Backdrop
If you’re taking portraiture seriously, you’ll likely already own at least one of these, but the hand painted backdrops are a phenomenal addition to your portrait setups. I’ll be honest, I was sceptical myself until I tried them and they really do enable you to produce truly gorgeous backgrounds when used in conjunction with a shallow depth of field lens. I’m using a 2m x 3m blue one from Essential Photo here and if you’ve ever looked at prices for hand-painted backdrops before, these ones from Essential Photo aren’t as pricey as many others out there.
Potential Alternatives
Beyond actually making one yourself, there really isn’t an alternative to this…. but again if you’ve ever tried to make one of these yourself, you’ll know it isn’t quite as easy as it looks. If you want to give it a go though, I did write an article on how to make a pretty simple alternative here DIY Mottled Backdrop
Hand Painted Backdrop
Another one of those products where you don’t realise you need it until you try it. These definitely give your portraits an instant edge of professionalism and are best used with shallow depth of fields to get some gorgeous portrait backgrounds.
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One Tip to Try - Lens Flare
There is one obvious area that I need to address and that’s the fact that the back light (the strip-box), is clearly pointed directly back to the camera. For the most part this is fine, but I should warn you that lens flare may be an issue unless you’re careful.
With that being said, you may, like me, want to ‘play with fire’ a little and try and coax more flare out of that light and into your lens.
Most modern lenses do a very good job of eliminating nearly all flare due to their superior lens coatings, but we can undo some of that by placing certain lens filters in front of our lens.
In the shot you see here, I’m using a low contrast lens filter from LEE in front of my lens and you can clearly see that the top of the image has that gorgeous light glow to it. This look wont be for everyone, but with a light positioned so perfectly straight into camera like this, its worth having a play with any lens filters you may have to see what you can produce.
Closing Comments
As I’ve stated throughout, this is a fairly simple setup and one that can be easily recreated and setup in almost any sized space, including home studios. It doesn’t require any specialist kit either, but if there are items in this setup that you don’t already have in your kit, I’d encourage you to consider them as you’ll no-doubt use them an awful lot in a variety of situations in any number of shoots for many years to come.
The one trick that may be new to you here is the strip-box hanging over the backdrop behind the model. This is a clever workaround that I use a lot, especially when in tight spaces, as it enables me to get a light almost overhead the subject without needing a boom or additional rigging. If you haven’t tried this, then definitely give it a go as it’s a very quick and easy way to add some much needed dimension to otherwise flat lighting from the front.
Give this setup a go and have fun trying a variety of fill-light colours, as well as playing with some in-camera flare when using lens filters. Let me know how you get on.
Featured Model: Sophie Baines
JHP Livestreams…
If you give this setup a go, I’d love to see how the shots turn out, so feel free to share them my way. One way to do that is via my livestream. I livestream every other Tuesday night via my FB Page 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. JHP Facebook Page
Thank You
As always, thanks for checking out this article and spending a little bit of your day with me here. I hope you found it useful and if you left with a little more knowledge than when you arrived, it’s been worth it.
If you have any questions or comments, or if something doesn’t make sense, by all means fire-away in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer what I can. Thanks again and I’ll see you in the next one.
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