5 Tips for When Working with New Models

We all start somewhere and if you’re a new photographer learning the ropes, you’ll likely prefer to get some practice in without having to hire a professional model for every single new idea or piece of kit you want to try out.

Don’t get me wrong, I highly recommend you pay for models when trying new ideas, as this can often remove a lot of the stress from a shoot. Paying for a model often means you’re paying for their expertise in posing and angles, and this can mean it’s one less thing for you to worry about. You’ll likely have enough going on with technical traumas, lighting placement, exposures, camera operation and much more, so paying a professional model who knows how to pose is always a huge help.

But what if you’re starting out and simply don’t have the budget just yet for a professional model?

By now your family and friends have blocked your number, the kids are desperately checking to see if you’re technically breaching any child labour laws by forcing them to model all the time and the dog tries to hide behind the washing machine as soon as they even think you’re glancing at your camera. So if you don’t have any wiling models around you, the next best thing is to reach out to aspiring new models who may be wiling to offer their time in exchange for a few nice photos. These new models, like you, may be inexperienced when it comes to preparing for a photoshoot, so here’s a few tips for them to consider and for you to watch out for, as you get ready to work together.

Makeup Prep

Be sure to discuss what makeup is needed or not needed prior to arrival. Note to photographers: GREAT MAKEUP TAKES TIME TO APPLY. Some shoots will have a makeup artist (MUA) on set and some shoots won’t. If there is going to be a MUA at the shoot, make sure the model isn’t arriving with a full face of makeup on as this will only need to be removed and reapplied by the MUA prior to shooting. Doing this can often result in extra redness to the skin especially around the eyes that can further add to your retouch time. If an MUA is going to be present, a clean, moisturised face is all that’s needed from the model.

If you don’t have an MUA, consider whether your model will be arriving with makeup or not. Maybe they have to travel a long way, maybe they’re travelling via public transport, if so, they may prefer to apply makeup once they arrive so it looks its best prior to shooting. I’ll say this again; great makeup takes time to apply. If the model is arriving without makeup and will be applying it there, be patient and be prepared for this process to take around 45 minutes. Obviously this figure will vary based on the look you’re going for, but just be patient if you’re looking for something specific or more complicated than simply ‘smoky eyes’… you know who you are ;)

Body Prep

I will encourage you to approach this subject with caution, as respect and understanding is needed if you choose to include this in your shoot prep. Firstly, you need to be clear on what you aim to shoot with your model. Will this be a regular portrait with shirt and jeans, or will this be a lingerie or swimwear shoot? If you are planning to shoot lingerie and swimwear, there is clearly going to be a certain about of skin showing and one area that can dramatically increase the retouching time of a lingerie image, is excessive stubble or shaving rashes. This is rarely something you’ll encounter with experienced models, but understandably, some newer models may overlook this. Like I said, be sensible when approaching this and if possible check their previous images to see if they ordinarily shave legs, armpits etc. Secondly, remember there is no need to bring this up if you plan on simply shooting jeans and shirt fashion and doing so will almost certainly freak a new model out.

One way to approach this in prior communication is to simply mention that if you plan on shaving legs etc prior to shooting, be sure to do so several hours beforehand so as to avoid any shaving rashes appearing in shots. Granted this is a very passive-aggressive approach, but it simply reminds them about shaving under the guise of a handy tip.

Tight Clothing

This one seems super obvious, but I still encounter this today, even with very experienced models. The issue I’m referring to is those little annoying marks that appear on the skin after removing tight clothing. It’s most commonly seen with tight bras or even socks and tight jeans. This can be seen as normal and unavoidable, but if there is any way you can at least minimise the issue, I recommend you do so as retouching out all of those little red marks and dents on the skin is a real pain.

One suggestion you can offer new models, is to advise them to arrive in very loose fitting clothing. There has been numerous occasions where my experienced models have arrived in pyjamas and or dressing gowns so as to avoid these clothing marks and it makes your retouching life so much easier.

Essentially, if a model turns up in their pyjamas, it’s a sign of their experience, not their lack thereof.

Remember, its not just the marks themselves, but the skin indentations are nearly always accompanied by redness and this again is timely to reduce in post.

Advise on loose fitting shirts and tracksuit bottoms and if you’re shooting lingerie, consider either no bra or some sports bras as they can leave less skin marks too.

Personal Items

This topic is likely going to be one that you’ll need to decide for yourself, but do you want the models personal items to be present in the shot? Personal items can be anything from wedding rings, piercings like navel and nose rings and even bracelets and necklaces that the model may always wear and not even consider taking off.

Is there an issue with personal items in shot? Again think about the context of the final image, is it a portrait that’s personal to the model? If so, then really any personal items should of course remain on the subject. Is it an editorial fashion shoot? Maybe we don’t need the distracting elements of big wedding rings or cheap piercings to be visible. One area that you’ll also need be respectful of is religious symbols being visible in shot. I’ve only personally experienced any push-back on this in the U.S. but I tend to ask for religious necklaces to be removed in commercial or editorial shots and although this is often not an issue, be respectful if someone refuses.

Why remove personal items? Again, this is going to be very dependent on the shoot and the story being told with your image. I personally don’t like how visually distracting some rings or piercings can be in an image, especially if they catch the light, and I will often politely ask if the model would mind removing them. Some models refuse to remove certain piercings and I respect that and simply move on. Their reasoning for not removing certain items can be numerous, but sometimes its simply that they don’t want a piercing hole to close over. If that is the case, I may follow up by asking if they mind me retouching the item out afterwards. ALWAYS check with the model before retouching a personal item out in shot. Just because you don’t like something, doesn’t mean you can simply remove it under the banner of ‘but it’s my personal vision’.

Hair Ties

I’ve understandably saved the most irritating, most distasteful and most abhorrent offender for last. This item has caused me countless sighs and eye-rolls over the years, as I’ve often loaded up raws to edit, only to hang my head in shame and despair as the unsightly offender is clear and plain to see. What’s worse is the fact that it’s the one item I had the most control over avoiding right from the start.

It is of course, the despicable hair tie!!

It never cease to amaze me how often these little accursed bands of fabric slip past the scrutiny of entire teams of creatives to somehow miraculously appear in the final shot. Like condemned spirits of the accessory realm, these textile manacles only appear once photographed and once again, under numerous heavy sighs of retouchers everywhere, they must be exorcised time and time again in our shots.

What I’m essentially saying here is, please, please, please check your model doesn’t have a godforsaken hair tie on her wrist before taking the shot. Your former photographers have failed up until this point to spot them, but that doesn’t mean all hope is lost in the continuing battle to ban and remove all hair ties from set! We all wish you luck in this seemingly impossible mission.

Closing Comments

Some of these tips may seem glaringly obvious to some of you, but to others these may be new and areas you hadn’t considered as something that you may like to avoid. Some of you may already mention these, along with other tips to your newer models, but if you’re looking to include these suggestions in your communication with newer models moving forward, I urge you to be respectful when doing so.

All of these areas can be seen as very personal to some models, where as other models may not see it as that at all and will often gladly welcome the free advice. Some models wont leave the house without a full-face of makeup on, whereas others love and welcome the opportunity to not cake themselves in makeup. Some models may be reluctant to remove personal items like religious symbols or piercings and some models may be more than happy to do so. There’s no right answer here, you likely have a final vision in mind for your shot and there is no harm in politely asking if your subject is willing to help you in achieving that goal. If they decline or refuse, ask if they’d mind you removing it in post, but if they’d still prefer you kept it in shot, please respect that wish. It’s just a photo at the end of the day and it really isn’t worth you upsetting anybody over it…… apart from the hair tie. I’ll cancel a shoot on the spot if a model was insane enough to not want to remove a hair tie from the wrist. My politeness has its limits!

JHP Livestreams…

Good luck if you’re testing out some new ideas with some new models and if you do, I’d love to see how the shots turn out. One way to share the shots my way, is to do so 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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Lighting Setup: Clean & Simple Coloured Fill Portrait

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.

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.

Silver 21.6” Beauty Dish

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 Umbrella Link

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.

Large Scrim Link

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.

Strip-Box Link

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.

Gel Packs Link

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.

Hand Painted Backdrop Link

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

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Lighting Setup: Indoor Swimwear Shoot

Shooting swimwear outside in natural light is nearly always the best solution, after all, the bright, crisp sunshine is an easy-win when it comes to making swimwear look good. But what if an outdoor shoot simply isn’t practical or even possible due to location and of course weather?

In this article I’ll discuss a simple indoor setup that can be created in almost any sized space and with standard kit. This setup isn’t trying to synthesise daylight indoors like I’ve done before, but it is about recreating that feeling of an outdoor shoot and I’ll share a couple of tricks I employ to do just that.

The Look…

Let’s first take a look at the final shots and then I’ll explain how I achieved them.

Breaking it down…

As I mentioned above, this setup is less about trying to recreate sunlight indoors, but more about synthesising a visually appealing shot that has sun-kissed elements. For example, I’ve a layered deep blue background, a crisp and shiny highlight on the skin as well as a warm kick of colour from below. With all this combined, I feel this look touches on a few semiotics that instil the feeling I was after.

How I created it…

Yes, I am using multiple lights and yes, although I did say that this was a ‘simple’ setup at the start of this article, there are certainly areas where we need to be careful. There are some more advanced techniques like mixing both hard and soft light as well as varying colour temperatures within the same shot, but as long as you know what you’re after, you should be fine.

Let’s first look at the overall setup and then I’ll break it down from there.

Don’t panic! I know this looks like a lot to some of you, but as with any complicated lighting setup, it’s just a series of smaller setups combined. We just need to look at this one piece at a time and assemble it from there.

Camera Settings

Camera - Nikon D850
Lens - AF DC Nikkor 105 F2
Shutter Speed - 1/250th
Aperture - f2.8
ISO - 400
Kelvin - 5000K
Focal Length - 105mm

The Background…

Let’s start with the easiest part first, the background. For this shot, I wanted a vibrant blue background, but I also wanted a sense of being outside and a sense of depth. Whenever you have a single, plain background behind the subject, it screams studio portrait and I wanted to avoid this where I could. In this shot I’ve simply layered two plain backgrounds behind one another to fake that depth. The initial stark white helps with the crisp sunlight look I was after and the bold blue behind that triggers a feeling of azure sky.

You can achieve this stacked background in a variety of ways and many of you may have access to a variety of Colorama backdrops at the studio you use. If not, don’t panic and simply do what I do and buy cheap window blinds!

Even though I’ve been using window blinds as backdrops for over 20 years, I still feel many overlook this incredibly effective and cheap background option. Of course window blinds do have their limitations, primarily their length. If you’re one of those poor, unfortunate souls who is STILL shooting full-length body shots in the studio, window blinds aren’t for you. But if you’re not a masochist who enjoys whipping themselves with wet tamarisk at dawn as well as shooting full-length portraits, I’d urge you to consider getting a few cheap window blinds.

Window Blinds

I’ve spoken a bunch about these over the years, so I wont make this article an alter to their magnificence once again, just know that window blinds as backgrounds are excellent for many reasons. Get the blackout blinds as they are thick enough to hang dead-straight, can be cleaned, aren’t shiny or reflective, have a subtle texture that can help with colour banding * takes-a-breath * lightweight, can be rolled up and stored easily… Like I said, there’s a lot of reasons to get windows as backdrops and I highly recommend you get at least one to try it out.

This one above is similar to the ones I have and if you’re getting something like this yourself, just pay close attention to not only the width (I went for a 180cm one here as that’s fine for most portrait work), but also check the ‘drop’ of your blind. The drop is the length of the blind and usually a drop of 150cm to 200cm will be enough for most portraits.

The Lights…

Now that we have the background setup, let’s now bring in the lights. As always, I highly recommend you set your lighting up one light at a time. This may seem obvious to some of you, but trust me, trying to turn all the lights on at once and adjust them accurately whilst not being entirely sure what each is doing is just making your life harder than it needs be. You’ve just quit full-length portraits, let’s keep the smart decisions rolling!

With this one-light-at-a-time in mind, let’s look at what each of these lights is doing in this setup and then I’ll explain them further.

In the images below, the diagram shows what each light is doing with the other lights turned off in the set. I’ve circled each of the active lights.

*If you’re not familiar with an Optical Snoot, check out my review of the one I use here to learn more* *Lighting Modifier Review: Optical Snoot*.

The Hard Key

This is the light that is off to one side of the model and cuts across the body to provide a crisp highlight in contrast to the softer light from the front. I’m using my favourite optical-snoot modifier here as it gives me very precise control of exactly where the light goes and I’m able to keep that light off of the background that the model is sitting next to. This modifier is often used in conjunction with gobos, but I have no gobos in this and it is just casting a circle of light.

If you don’t have an optical snoot, you could try a regular snoot, a gridded reflector dish and even a barn doors modifier. I personally prefer the optical-snoot as its a cleaner light with minimal hot-spots and, like I mentioned above, more controllable.

The Soft Fill

Next we have our fill light and here I’m using my personal soft-light of choice, a large umbrella and scrim combo. Using this combination gives me the best, soft light in a small space. Yes, a large softbox could be used here, but in small spaces, the hot-spots large softboxes produce is personally not a look I like. The next viable alternative, in my opinion, would be a large umbrella with a diffusion cover. This is a double diffused light as the flash is first bounced into the umbrella and then passed through the diffusion cover which goes a long way to remove the ugly hotspots shooting with big lights in small spaces can produce.

If you’re going to experiment with colour temperature gels, be sure to switch off AWB (auto white balance) and instead select K (manual Kelvin).

The colour…

The more experienced among you may have noticed a subtle colour in these photos and no this isn’t colour grading, but subtle colours added at the point of capture. The first colour I’m going to talk about here is the blue hue the model is bathed in and this comes from a CTB (Colour Temperature Blue) gel on the big soft light. This CTB gel is a colour balancing gel and NOT a simple blue gel.

I make this distinction as you wont get this very subtle look with a regular gel as that would overpower the look very quickly. If you want to play with CTB gels like this, you may need to experiment with varying white balance adjustments on your camera to find a look you’re happy with. I’ve added this CTB gel to my light and then adjusted the Kelvin (white balance) on my camera to around 5000K to make that fill light a faint blue colour. This is creative white balancing and although I’ve shared similar techniques to this in the past, this can be an odd process if you’re not familiar with it. If you are going to play with this, just be sure to turn OFF Auto-White-Balance as this will correct the effect you’re trying to achieve. Instead, select the custom white balance option, this is usually displayed as a ‘K’ in the menu.

*You know that nasty gold reflector you have that you’ve never used? I’ve finally found a use for it for you!*

The Warm Fill

This is a clever little technique that I’ve used a few times in the past and it involves you bouncing a light off of the floor in front of the model. This may seem odd at first and the model may indeed think you’ve lost your mind, but yes, I am asking you to point the light at the floor in front of the model and not actually onto them. For this setup I wanted a little warm light to contrast that cold, blue light I’m using in my main fill. To do this, I simply placed a gold reflector on the floor in front of the model and shone a hard light into it. The light then bounces off of the reflector and throws a warm glow of light coming up from below.

You’ll want to play with the placement and angles here, but ultimately you want the light to bounce up under the model, but you don’t want that light to come from too far away or it’ll hit the front of the subject and fight with the other two lights too much. Look again at my solo-light diagram above and check that reflector light again to see how its lighting under the arms and leg and not lighting the front of the model.

One other element to this that we need to be mindful of here is the modifier on the light we’re firing into the reflector. Again, this needs to be hard light so that we can control that light just onto the gold reflector and nowhere else. I’m using a regular snoot here, but a grid or barn doors is just as good.

I’m sure most of you likely have a gold reflector knocking-about somewhere at home, but if not, you could substitute this for a small softbox with a CTO gel on it instead. This contrasting warm colour may be quite strong so maybe consider a 1/2 CTO instead. But like I said, you’re bound to have a gold reflector somewhere and this’ll make your life a lot easier.

Kit Used…

Optical Snoot

Many of my regular readers will know that I absolutely love this modifier. I use it in so many of my shoots, although I rarely use it for its intended purpose, which is shining light through gobos. I’m using the optical snoot here as it allows me to be very controlled with where the light falls on my subject. I do not want any light from this modifier to fall directly onto model or the background before it has hit the mylar. The very controllable spot of light the optical snoot provides easily enables me to do this, even in small shooting spaces like a home studios.

Potential Alternatives

You could substitute this optical snoot for many other small and hard light sources. A snoot, a grid and even barn doors would allow you to direct the light into a small area like the optical snoot does here although it won’t be as focused.

*Note: This modifier can be used in conjunction with many different strobes. Check the dropdown for compatibility.*

Optical Snoot

A unique modifier that you’ll use more often than you realise. No other modifier creates strong directional light like this does and although often used with gobos, I often simply use it without them.

Optical Snoot Link

Large Umbrella & Scrim

Potential Alternatives

*Note: This one also comes with a diffusion cover which provides even softer light.*

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 Umbrella Link

*Note: This scrim is a perfect size for portrait shooting, plus its still small enough to be used in home studios too.*

Large Scrim

I originally got this for cinematic studio lighting, but now I nearly use it on every shoot that requires a soft light. This scrim produces noticeably cleaner and softer light over simply using a softbox alone.

Large Scrim Link

5in1 Reflector

Many of us likely have a bunch of these 5in1 reflectors at home stuffed in a bag somewhere, but if not, here’s a link to one similar to what I used in this setup here.

5in1 Reflector Link

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 the CTO and CTB gels, or its just regular colour gels, the extra layer of colour in this shot and many others is a great way to say more about your image.

Potential Alternatives to Colour Temperature Gels

There really isn’t an alternative I’m afraid. These CTB and CTO gels are specifically designed to change the colour of lights along the Kelvin scale. So although you may be able to save a few quid and use wrapping paper, sweet wrappers, coloured dye on glass (trust me, I’ve heard all the cheapskate alternatives to actually buying gels by now ;) ), there simply is no household alternative to colour temperature gels to my knowledge.

*Note: The Colour Temperature gels can be found in the ‘Utility Gel Pack’. The other saturated coloured gels are in my ‘Definitive’ pack.*

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 CTB gels are found in the ‘Utility Pack’.

Gel Packs Link

Closing Comments…

At the start of this article I referenced this article as “a simple indoor setup”. In hindsight I may have underestimated how much was involved in actually achieving this look. Either that or I tricked you to continue reading the whole article as you thought it was a simple setup to try on your next shoot!

Regardless of how you ended up all the way down here, I would urge you to try this setup out as it involves a few subtle tricks that are tough to manage convincingly. In my experience, bold and saturated colours are often easier to achieve than these subtle colour-plays as even small changes in your settings, powers and gels can make a big difference to the final look.

As always, just break it down one light at a time and focus on setting up each light correctly before moving onto the next one. Before you know it, you’ll have two backdrops up, a light pointing at the floor and a model that thinks you’re a lunatic in no-time!

Points to consider…

Be sure that the hard key light doesn’t shine onto the backdrop as that will ruin the fill light effect.
The brightness of the backgrounds is dependant on how close they are to the subject. The only light lighting those backgrounds is the large fill, so keep them fairly close.
Play with the Kelvin values on your camera to find a look that suits your setup. The colour of the blue backdrop, the gold reflector and even the swimsuit will all play a role in affecting the white balance you go for.
Make sure the light that is pointed at the gold reflector is ONLY hitting that reflector. Failing to do this may result in you bouncing odd and unwanted light and colour into your shot.
You may find that you have a few errant highlights and even shadows on your backgrounds from your bounced light. I did toy with the idea of removing these in post, but ultimately I felt that they added something to the shot and added a sense depth. This is your call of course, I’m just letting you know what I felt about them.

Featured Model: Sophie Baines

JHP Livestreams…

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DIY Diffusion Filter

I’ve been using diffusion filters on my lenses for many years, but recently LEE Filters, the brand that makes the one that I use, ceased production of them. Here’s a cheap and easy DIY alternative…

*Sadly LEE Filters recently announced that they were ceasing production of their diffusion filters AKA 'Softs’, so I looked for some alternatives.*

If you were curious about the LEE Softs filter, you can see the results of me using them here Using Diffusion Filters - LEE 'Soft' Filters

For years I’ve been making videos and presenting demonstrations using the LEE ‘Soft’ filters and now that people can’t purchase them anymore, I’ve been getting a lot of messages and questions regarding alternatives.

This article explains what a diffusion filter does and why it’s not like other lens filters you may already have.

Plus, I’ll also go over some alternative options, as well as a very quick and cheap DIY version for you to try too.

What is a diffusion filter?

There is some confusion surrounding what a ‘diffusion filter’ actually is as, many people confuse them with ‘low contrast’ filters and other similarly named lens filters. A diffusion filter, or as LEE used to call them ‘Softs’, creates a flared point of light around the light source. Imagine taking a shot of car head lamp on a foggy day, the bright part of the shot glows outwards creating a radiating flare. The distinction to make here, is that diffusion filters create flare at the source of light, compared to low contrast filters that create a far more gradual and general glow or haze of light.

I wrote a detailed article on low contrast filters here if you’re interested Using Low Contrast Lens Filters in Portraits, but essentially the example image below shows you the difference between the diffusion and low contrast filters pretty clearly.

What are the alternatives to the LEE Softs?

The good news is that you have a few options and you can either spend a lot, or not much at all to get some pretty similar looking results to the old ‘Softs’, but what does a good alternative look like?

By all means take a look around online for yourself to see what might fit with what you want, but here are a few of the popular alternative lens filter options that I’ve used in the past: Check the ‘Tiffen - Black Pro Mist’ or the ‘Moment - Cinebloom’ or even the ‘Prism Lens - FX Dream FX’

All the aforementioned filters are good in their own right, but they may even be ‘too’ good for what we want. What I mean by that is that the filters like the Pro Mist and even Cinebloom do an excellent job of scattering the light and giving us that cool ‘cinematic’ look, but we want more of a flare at the point of light over a global haze effect. To do this, we often need something a little crappier and here is where a nice DIY alternative can save the day.

DIY Diffusion Filter

If you’re after a cheap DIY alternative to the LEE Softs filter then you’re in luck, because mine only cost me £5.48!!!

All you need is a cheap UV lens filter that is the correct diameter for the lens you’ll be using, and some hair spray…. that’s it!

UV Lens Filter

I just searched ‘62mm UV lens filter’ on eBay and got a few results. The cheapest option is absolutely fine as we’re not worried about quality for this. REMEMBER: Be sure to search for a UV filter that matches your specific lens diameter.

Note: Be sure to search for your specific lens diameter to narrow the search. If you’r not sure what mm your lens diameter is, you can usually find it on the inside of your lens cap.

Hair Spray

You may already have this at home somewhere, but if not, you can buy mini cans of hairspray very cheaply.

Again, there’s nothing fancy here. I just searched ‘hairspray’ on Amazon and chose the cheapest one and its only cheap because it comes in a mini 75ml tester size. You’ll hardly need any hairspray, so the smaller the can, the better.

Making your DIY Diffusion Filter

This will take you all of about 10 seconds and reading this will take you more time than it will to make your filter.

I simply went outside, held my UV filter at arms length away from me, held the hairspray close to my chest and then I sprayed a couple of quick passes over the filter.

The aim here is to keep the spray far enough away from the filter so that the droplets of spray have time to separate. You don’t want to saturate the filter and you want to spray in quick bursts. Try spraying above the filter and letting the hairspray fall down onto it. Remember: It’s far easier to build up the effect with multiple passes compared to overdoing it in one spray.

Before and After UV Filter

Below you can see what the UV filter looked like before and after the hairspray. Like I mentioned above, the trick is to have a fine mist of dots that aren’t all clumped together and remember, you can always build up from here if you want a more pronounced effect.

Testing the Effect

You can immediately test the filter to see if its working to the desired amount. Simply find a single light source and photograph it in shot. Below you can see the results and how pronounced the effect is with just a simple squirt of hairspray.

*Click to enlarge -* Handheld LED strip light

*Click to enlarge* - Regular ceiling lights

Using your DIY Diffusion Filter in a Photoshoot

It’s up to you how you use your new DIY diffusion filter, but for me personally, I only tend to use one when lights are either in-shot, or just out of frame, like if you were using a hair light or edge light on a portrait. Without a light being fired back to the lens, you’ll likely not notice this lens filter doing anything at all.

Without DIY Diffusion Filter

With DIY Diffusion Filter

Closing Comments

It should be plainly obvious to see from the images above just how powerful a diffusion filter can be when it comes to adding a little extra interest to your shots. The diffusion filter allows for a glow of light to enter the frame and I always find this a very useful trick for studio portraits, especially if the background is very plain. You can also use this glow technique to seemingly mix colours in shots too as you can layer one coloured glow on top of another and its similar to what I’m doing here by layering the pink on top of the darker blue.

Light Placement

Play around with a few ideas, but just remember that the diffusion trick really only works when the light is coming back into the lens. Any points of light will trigger the effect and you can even see the glow of light reflecting off of the necklace in the 3/4 length body shot above.

Increasing the Effect

The only next steps here are for you to consider ways of practically increasing the effect without having to spray more hairspray on the same filter. One method that I often use is to simply stack the UV filters. For example I now have two lens filters with the hairspray on them and if I want more ‘glow’ I simply screw both filters to my lens in a stack. This is a simple solution and its very quick to add another filter at the point of shooting.

Storage

One last tip, and that’s to do with storage. The reason we’re using hairspray at all is so that the droplets will hold in place without simply drying up and disappearing, which would have happened if we’d simply sprayed water onto the filter. That’s not to say that the hairspray droplets are durable at all and you need to remember that if the surface of that filter comes into contact with anything at all, the droplets will smudge and the effect will be ruined. From here you’d need to properly clean filter and reapply the hairspray once more. With this in mind, be sure to keep your DIY diffusion filter in its box when not in use.

Good luck and have fun playing with these simple in-camera flares.

Model: Ryo Love

Necklace: LOVE ROX

Lighting: Rotolight AEOS 2 & Titans

JHP Livestreams…

If you give this DIY Diffusion Filter a go, I’d love to see how the shots turn out and definitely 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

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Lighting Setup: Caustic Portrait Light

Don’t be alarmed! Yes, the title of this article may seem a little bizarre, no it’s not helping my SEO, but I assure you that there’s actually a scientific reason behind its ‘caustic’ name.

For many years I’ve played with the idea of recreating various lighting looks that many of us may know and love from the natural world around us. Sure, we can buy fancy lighting modifiers that all serve a purpose, but sometimes their look can be a little too clinical, and frankly boring. Yes, once again I’m looking directly at you, softbox users. I guess we all start somewhere though ;)

Now that I’ve ostracised half of my readers in the first paragraph, let’s see if Jake’s latest DIY lighting modifier is actually any good!

As I alluded to, many studio modifiers can be a pale representation of truly beautiful natural light and no studio modifiers really ever come close to recreating it. From the hard, direct sunlight of an L.A. muscle beach to the incredibly soft and diffused natural light of an overcast Scottish summers day, it can be tricky to truly replicate these defining daylight looks indoors.

Beyond the classics of purely hard and soft light though, there are a multitude of other natural lighting looks and effects that we can try to recreate and one of those is ‘caustics’.

We’re all likely very familiar with the beautiful light-play we see at the bottom of a pool. The phenomenon is referred to as ‘caustics’. - Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash

What are ‘Caustics’?

The term caustics is used in optics as it describes the resulting look of light after it passes though specifically shaped, transparent, denser than air materials. These transparent objects are namely water and you’ve likely seen the tell-tale rippling pattern at the bottom of a swimming pool or even through a glass of water on a table.

The caustic look I was most interested in recreating was that beautiful shadow-play effect you see at the bottom of a pool when the wind catches the surface. The resulting stunning display of dancing highlights is projected on the floor beneath and its this very look that has always fascinated me.

Could I recreate these ‘caustics’ and would I even be able to do so without the use of sunlight?

Similar Effects…

Long-time readers will know I’ve played with this shadow-play or ‘textured’ light idea in the past. I’ve shone hard light through glass-blocks and even bounced light off of those silver emergency blankets. Both of these setups produced great results, but they certainly had their drawbacks. If you’re interested, I’ll link those previous articles below so you can see my ‘workings’.

Of course others have tried to recreate similar looks too and although many of them had their merits, some were simply impractical or others were not particularly flattering. Some setups I’ve seen even require the subject to lie underneath a large tray of rippling water! Yes the caustic effect was certainly visible, but having the subject lying down the whole time is not ideal and suspending a transparent bathtub of water above them is far from practical for most of us.

Along with the aforementioned examples, I’ve seen countless other iterations on the same idea of using caustics in the studio, but they all suffered from the same issue; they all lit their subjects from below!

You see, others were using a similar principle of bouncing light off of a silver sheet, but they had the sheet below the model. This meant that the subjects were now being lit by light coming from below them and this is never a good look (outside of 80’s classic horror).

The obvious and somewhat simple solution I had to avoid this very unflattering under-lighting, was to simply position the silver sheet above them to then bounce light down onto them. This solved the nasty under-light look, but I was wasn’t getting the dramatic and very distinctive caustic lighting effect I was after.

Looking to recreate a mottled lighting effect similar to that of dappled light through trees? Try this ‘Emulating Dappled Light in the Studio’ setup.

Don’t want to spend any money, but want a cool lighting effect? Try this ‘My favourite £1 Lighting Modifier’ setup.

A surprisingly simple solution…

As it turns out, to get the look I was after, I simply had to combine a couple of my old ideas together to come up with the best solution. The caustic lighting effect on water is actually fairly subtle and by that I mean the effect is lost the instant the water surface gets too broken up and rough. You only ever see the phenomenon at the bottom of a pool when there’s a light breeze. Too much wind and the effect is simply lost.

I’d previously been on the right track by using silver sheeting to create a dappled effect, but to do so, I was scrunching up my silver sheet far too much to get the proper caustic effect I was after. The solution? Don’t scrunch up the silver sheet. I did tell you the solution was simple.

Previously I’d thought that a textured surface to bounce the light off would create the best desired effect. But like the surface of a pool on a windy day, the effect was lost!

The Setup…

Many of my younger readers will have just skipped down here to the ‘meat’ of the article, and to you I say, ‘welcome’. To those that have diligently read all the way down here thus-far, you now have a better understanding of exactly what we're trying to achieve. Plus, you’ll have learnt from a few of my previous mistakes that you’ll likely now want to avoid. -I can almost hear the indecision of the ‘skippers’ as they ponder whether the 18 extra seconds of reading above will make their final shots better or not.

As always, let’s first look at the setup and then I’ll explain exactly what’s going on and how you can adapt it to get various results based on your tastes.

Click on any of the images above to enlarge them.

Camera Settings

Camera - Nikon D850
Lens - AF DC Nikkor 105 F2
Shutter Speed - 1/125th
Aperture - f2.0
ISO - 50
Kelvin - 4500K
Focal Length - 105mm

The lighting design…

Now that you’ve seen the setup and some of the behind the scenes of the shoot, let me briefly explain what’s going on. The lighting design revolves around me casting the caustics onto the model via a hard light being shone into a silver mylar sheet suspended above the models head. This lighting effect creates highlights and shadows on the model and those shadows are then in turn filled in by a coloured soft light produced by a large umbrella and scrim.

Silver Mylar

The silver mylar is the secret trick here and although I’ve used this material in the past to create a similar effect, I’d not used a perfect sheet of it in this way. By ‘perfect’, I mean not scrunched, folded or otherwise distorted. By having a clean sheet of it above the model like this means the resulting reflections are only slightly affected, but when magnified by the distance of the light traveling from surface to subject, those slight imperfections are magnified and this is what creates this gorgeous caustic-like effect. I’ll share the exact silver mylar I used in the ‘Products Used’ section below, so you can get a better idea of what this product is and does if you’ve not used it before.

Simulating ‘casuistics’

Yes, to clarify, I’m technically not creating true caustics via water or other transparent mediums, I am in fact recreating a similar look by bouncing hard light off of a very shiny surface. That being said, the effect is extremely similar to the caustic look and we don’t have to suspend a pool of water above the model to do achieve it either.

Never light from below

The other important factor here is the fact that I’ve suspended the mylar above the subject. To me, this is a crucial element that many overlook as you never want to simply lay the mylar sheet on the floor and bounce light up off of it. Is it realistic to have caustics coming down compared to caustics being cast up on to the model like they may appear in nature, like if the model was stood at the pool edge? No, but we’re trying to take great portraits, not win at the science fair.

By having the mylar above the models head, we are able to maintain a far more flattering light down onto our subject, (and I’ll say it again as I know people will make this mistake) as you never want to light your subject from below.

Hard Light

Many long-time readers of mine will have long ago come to terms with the fact that I use very hard light in a lot of my setups in the form of an ‘Optical Snoot’. Many of you will already own one of these Optical Snoots as they aren’t too pricey in terms of other lighting modifiers, but if you don’t own one, what are the alternatives?

Firstly, what is an Optical Snoot? It’s a lighting modifier that attaches to your studio strobe that focusses the light into a vey tight beam via a lens mounted at the end. The optical snoot I have actually uses one of my camera lenses to do this and the resulting light cast from it is extremely controlled and focused. If you don’t have one, I’d urge you to consider getting one as you’ll use it far more than you think, but an alternative for this setup maybe something like a bare speedlight. Speedlights cast a very tight and hard beam of light and although this is ordinarily far from ideal as a light for your subject, those same properties are ideal for this situation. Failing that, a snoot or grid on your strobe could also be tried, but just me mindful that the resulting caustic effect may be a little less prominent and more blurred.

Soft Light

The soft light portion of this setup is a little easier to achieve and you can create a similar look in a variety of ways. For this setup, I use a large umbrella coupled with a large scrim. I personally love this combo as it creates some very soft light in a small space which is ideal for smaller studios and home shoot-spaces. Due to softboxes all having an inherent and unavoidable hotspot at the centre, I’d never recommend using a softbox in smaller spaces to create soft light. The umbrella bounces light away from the subject and then the resulting bounced light passes though a layer of diffusion. It’s this method that removes any hotspots and it produces a significantly softer light as a result.

Taking it further

I’ve already outlined the basic premise of this setup, but what if you want to take if further? What if you wanted to add some colour? Of course no self-respecting studio photographer would prepare a lighting setup without also adding some coloured light to it right?!

Thankfully this is easily done and all we have to do is add a coloured gel to our soft light. This soft light is already filling in the harder shadows of the shot, so this simply adds colour to those shadows without overpowering the subject.

The only decision left to make is ‘what sort of colour should you add?’ In the final shots below, I’ll show you some of the variations I played with and you can decide for yourself what you prefer or what you’d like to try and develop further. Remember, although the shots below all look very different, the only thing changing, is the gel on the soft light…. nothing else!

Final shots…

You can click on any of the shots below to fit them to your screen.

Base Setup

This image is the ‘base setup’. That means that there is no gels whatsoever on the soft light. I have the hard light fired into the mylar above and the resulting caustics are falling down onto the model. The soft light is adding a small amount of fill-light to the scene which results in those dark shadows cast by the caustics to not be too heavy and dark. This is a great look as is and creates a very believable caustic lighting effect.

From here you can play with varying amounts of fill-light power from the soft light. More power from the soft light would reduce the overall contrast of caustics and less power would increase it.

Click on the image to fit it to your screen.

The ‘Warmer Look’ Setup

This next look adds a lot of visual warmth to the setup via colour gel on the soft light.

As you can immediately tell from the look of this compared to the base setup, that the shadows are now a lot warmer looking and this is thanks to a CTO gel being added to the softlight.

A Colour Temperature Orange (CTO) gel is a specifically designed gel that is used to increase the Kelvin value of a given light. This is NOT to be confused with a regular orange gel. You can of course test a regular orange gel here, but you’ll likely find the effect far too dominant and because of this, I prefer using the more subtle CTO gel.

Click on the image to fit it to your screen.

The ‘Colder Look’ Setup

Like the previous setup above where I added a CTO gel to the soft light, I’ve now replaced that CTO with a CTB gel. The Colour Temperature Blue (CTB) gel is doing a similar thing as before in that it's applying a subtle colour thanks to it only affecting the Kelvin. Like I said, this is subtle, in fact you may not even have noticed it at all, had you not seen the original un-gelled shot at the start. Using these subtle Kelvin gels can be a great way to affect the overall look of a scene, without dominating or overpowering it with colour. It’s also worth noting that your background can play a huge part in this too. I’m using a gorgeously rich, gold hand painted canvas backdrop here which is very warm to look at on its own. This CTB just brings the whole scene to a more neutral tone overall.

Click on the images to fit them to your screen.

Adding MORE colour…

In these final few shots I played with adding even more colour via the use of regular coloured gels on the softlight. As you can see from the shots below, the shadows are now filled with a very obvious colour and I was personally happiest with these final looks due to the harmony I was creating with the gold backdrop and models bronzed skin, alongside the almost aquamarine blue gel colour.

Colour is arguably one of the most subjective aspects of our lives, as colour means vastly different things to each of us, but the philosophy of colour aside, I’d always encourage each you to experiment with colour in your shoots. Start to build your own visual library of what works and what doesn’t for you personally. Don’t be afraid to experiment and above all else, trust your own opinion of what looks good.

Ultimately, the shots below show where I ended up with my final colours and to me, it conjured a colour harmony that was reminiscent of old Roman baths. A rich gold and bronze that had oxidised with that greenish undertone, coupled with the water caustics and tile effect of the hand painted backdrop, resulting in the gorgeous final shots below that I am very happy with.

Like I said, play with the colours yourself based on the models skin type, styling, your backdrop and overall look you’re after.

Click on the images to fit them to your screen.

Products Used

Silver Mylar

This is likely the most unique item on the list and although you probably don’t have some of this lying around, it’s not too expensive to get.

I grabbed a 10m roll on eBay for less than £20 and although you probably don’t need 10m, it was the best value versus options for additional uses down the road. By all means take a look and get something that’s more appropriate for your needs. Note that Mylar is a used for a variety of applications from agriculture to helium balloons, so don’t expect to find it in a photo-store.

Optical Snoot

Potential Alternatives

Optical Snoot

Optical Snoot Link

Large Umbrella & Scrim

Potential Alternatives

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 Umbrella Link

Large Scrim

Large Scrim Link

Hand Painted Backdrop

If you’re taking portraiture seriously, you’ll likely already own at least one of these, but the hand painted canvas 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 gold 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

*Note: These come in a huge variety of shapes and designs so follow the link to see what suits your style.*

Hand Painted Backdrop

Hand Painted Backdrop Link

Colour Gels

Potential Alternatives to Colour Temperature Gels

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 CTB gels are found in the ‘Utility Pack’.

Gel Packs Link

Closing Comments…

At its core, this is a fairly simple setup. It’s only two lights and the placement of them doesn’t even need to be particularly precise. Place your hard-light down low pointed up at the silver mylar and then simply place your soft-light somewhere just to the side to bathe the scene in its entirety.

Points to consider

It may not be immediately apparent from the diagram, but I’m actually shooting over the top of my optical snoot. Keeping the optical snoot directly in front of the subject like this will ensure that the light bounced down from above is straight on as well. This helps greatly with shadow-management.
Play with getting the sweet-spot in distance for your model from the background. You want them close enough so that the caustic effect falls on them as well as the backdrop, but far enough away so as to allow the background to fall out of focus with shallow depth of field lensed.
Although our hard-light is on the floor, the light itself when it reaches the model is actually coming down from above at a steep angle. Be very mindful of the posing when shooting like this as the models chin will need to be up a lot of the time to avoid unflattering shadows.
Be prepared to adjust the silver mylar above. Maybe I got extremely lucky, but I simply suspended it above, clamped it in place, shone the light onto it and the resulting caustics looked great straightaway. If you’re not getting the results your happy with, play with how taught the sheet its above. For me, keeping it tight resulted in the minor imperfections being magnified over the distance to give the effect I wanted.
Don’t forget to play with varying ratios of light too. By ratios I mean the differences in power between the two lights. Try more and less power through the fill and key to see what you prefer, but be careful that that the highlights present in the caustic pattern aren’t blowing out. This setups features contrasting light, so don’t be afraid to let the dark areas be dark.

As always, good luck and I hope you have some fun creating something a little more unique than your standard-looking portrait. If you give it a go then I’d love to see the results and you can always share your results in my weekly community image critique post, -Share-a-Shoot- every Monday on the Facebook Page. See you there.

Featured Model: Sophie Baines

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