Lighting Setup: Pastel Coloured Light and Gobos

Ever since I started to use coloured lighting, I’ve always battled with the issues that many of us face when combining multiple colours and if you’ve shot with coloured gels in the past, I’m sure you’re familiar with what I mean. Images involving multiple coloured lights can sometimes look messy or display muddy colours that look almost blocky with clipped colour data. But why does this happen? Why do our coloured lights often look a mess?

The reason for this is actually fairly simple and in this lighting setup I’ll show you how to mix even delicate pastel colours in the same shot, whilst still maintaining a crisp look.

White Light Vs Coloured Light

The vast majority of us start flash photography with simple white light. We set up a shot where we have our key light, fill light, maybe even a hair light and then we quickly get to work shooting. For the most part, almost anybody can get away with lighting like this and the results will often produce a passable portrait with even the sloppiest of lighting placements.

*A basic white light setup that creates a passable portrait.*

*Add coloured gels to this and the whole thing instantly turns into a mess.*

To be clear, I am definitely not recommending the white-light setup above and there are many reasons for that, but for the most part, it still produces a usable portrait. But things really start to fall apart when we add coloured gels, as now the tone and shape of the subject is utterly lost in a mess of muddy and busy colours. But why?

The main reason for this is that white lighting is extremely easy and forgiving to use. You can overlap and combine multiple white lights on the subject with little to no issue. You get away with lighting like this because all the lights are the same colour as you simply can’t tell where one light ends and another begins.

Add different colours to those lights and now the whole thing turns into a Jackson Pollock. All of those lights now mix together on top of one another and this ultimately results in the clipping of colours and the ugly, muddy colour mixes we’re all too familiar with when we first start shooting with coloured gels.

Good-looking gelled lighting is about keeping those colours and ultimately the lights separated. As long as you clearly light separate areas of a subject with individual lights, the lights don’t mix and the colours don’t mix. This always results in the best-looking colours as they are left clean and highly saturated.

This separation of light is fairly easy to do with very controllable hard lights, but what about when you want to produce some softer, pastel washes of colour?

*Keeping the lights and individual colours separated on the subject will always result in the best-looking colours.*

The Lighting Setup

We’re all visual people here, so let’s first look at the setup and then I’ll explain it all in detail below.

TL;DR/ADHD/Artist Setup Explanation

Set up your artificial trellis in front of your subject
Position your optical snoot to shine through it, casting shadows onto your model
Add a very soft light with the aid of a V-flat to camera-right to wash soft colour across the subject
Accent that first colour with another pastel colour positioned to camera-left and behind the model

What You Will Need

3 lights - These can be any lights you like, but I’m using all LEDs here. I’ll cover those in a moment, but speedlights and strobes will also work just as well if you have them.

Modifiers - This may depend on the type of lights you’re using, for example, my soft blue light to camera-left is a large Rotolight Titan X1 LED panel. It’s a soft light by design of its size, but if you’re using a strobe or speedlight here, I recommend using a softbox to soften the light. Other modifiers are my DIY V-flats, but you could also use a white sheet instead. Lastly, I’m using a very hard light in the form of an optical snoot.

Optical Snoot - You’ve likely heard me praising the optical snoot modifier for many, many years now, so I won’t go over them yet again, but if you still don’t have one (I highly recommend you do), you could try to substitute this for another hard light source. If you’re using strobes, try a grid/honeycomb or an open dish and if you’re using a speedlight, I’d not use any modifier at all and keep the beam fairly focused.

V-Flats - I recently made these foldable DIY V-flats myself very cheaply. I put out a complete build guide on them not too long ago, so if you missed it, be sure to check that out. I’ll provide the links below.

Artificial Rose Trellis - Nearly all of my lighting setup guides have a wild-card, and here is this weeks one. If you’re not sure what this is, it’s simply a collapsable trellis that holds fake leaves and roses. It’s this that I shine my hard-light through to cast shadows onto my subject.

Camera Settings

Camera - Nikon D850
Lens - 105mm f2
Shutter Speed - 1/60th
Aperture - f2.8
ISO - 160
Kelvin - 4500K
Focal Length - 105mm

The Results…

Click to fit any of the shots below to your screen.

Breaking it Down

Now that the right-side of our brains has been momentarily sated, it’s time to dig into the details of the setup and understand exactly what’s going to make this look work and how we’re able to mix and layer delicate pastel colours like this, without the shot turning into the chroma-catastrophe we explained earlier.

The DIY Gobo - Artificial Rose Trellis

For those not sure what I’m talking about, a gobo (or go-between), is something that is placed between the light and the subject that will in turn cast shadows. You can do this with almost anything and placing plants, glassware and even knickers (it’s a long story) over or in front of the light will cast shadows, but ordinarily, I’d use a purpose-built gobo that goes in the optical snoot. The purpose-built gobos are little laser-cut metal discs that allow the light to pass through them and produce shadows, but this time around, I opted for something bigger in the form of a large fake trellis of roses.

I saw this in one of those cheap superstores and I picked it up for only £20. Me spotting this in the store was what gave me the whole idea for this setup and I actually built the lighting around the fake trellis as I immediately knew it would be perfect to shine light through and I knew it would cast some pretty cool looking shadows.

These artificial trellis’ are more common than you think and I just had a look online and you can get them in a bunch of those cheap superstores as well as in garden centres, although they are a little pricier there. We’re not worried about quality for this project as we’re only using it to cast shadows, so the cheaper the better. Plus, these fake ones concertina down to only about a foot wide too, meaning they’re very easy to store between shoots.

*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 Key Light - Optical Snoot

As I mentioned above, I love my optical snoot and I’d easily put it up there in my top five must-have modifiers for sure. The reason for that is due to it providing something very unique that other modifiers can’t and don’t do, and that’s focusing the light into a very hard beam. This hard-light is not only incredibly easy to control, but it can create sharp edges of light to cast specific patterns via gobos on subjects and backgrounds. Or in this case, we simply place a full-size gobo in front of our light and the optical snoot produces a hard enough light that it easily casts shadows onto our subject. If you’re interested in learning more, check out the full review of my optical snoot here.

The Key Light - The Godox SZ100R

As I mentioned at the top, these images were all captured using LED lights. The LED head that the optical snoot was attached to, was the new Godox SZ150R. As many of you know, I’ve been impressed with the quality of light from my new Rotolight panels, but as beautiful as that light is, I can’t focus it into a hard beam and this is where the excellent SZ150R comes in. The new Godox LED head can accept all S-fit (Bowens) modifiers which opens up tons of creative possibilities when you consider how many S-fit lighting modifiers there are.

The SZ150R also has the ability to produce any of its available millions of colours at the touch of a button and although I’m only using white light in this setup, having all those colours instantly available is certainly a very handy feature.

The Fill Lights - Rotolight Titan X1 & AEOS 2

I’ve been using these new Rotolight panels for the last couple of months and I have to admit I’ve been very impressed with them. The reason for this is their ability to produce super-clean and even-looking lighting in tight spaces like home studios and locations. For me, I need clean and even looking colours on my subjects and with a quick fall-off of light to avoid any unwanted light bouncing around a small space and these do that perfectly. Strobes and softboxes tend to struggle with this due to the inherent hot-spots always present on softboxes, and this is especially noticeable when used close to the subject in tight shooting situations.

The most important aspect of me using these lights in this setup, is how soft the light needs to be. The Titan X1 is a big panel that inherently produces soft-light and although the AEOS 2 (the round one) is a decent size too, I wanted to make its light even softer by bouncing it into that big white V-flat. If you don’t have large LED panels, then just be sure to substitute them for something equally soft. Place a medium softbox instead of the Titan and then simply fire your strobe or speedlight into the V-flat to heavily soften that light.

DIY Foldable V-Flats

I recently made these foldable V-flats and shared the process. If you’re interested, then I’ll share the link here as I highly recommend you make some yourself or at least get something similar. The reason for this is due to how soft we need to make the light in this setup and I’ll explain why that’s so important below. Firing your light into a large white V-flat like this results in that light being incredibly soft and it’s exactly that softness that we sometimes need in our shots. Look at these V-flats as a fundamental lighting modifier of your lighting kit just like a beauty dish or softbox. Failing this, bouncing light against a large white cotton sheet can also be a good substitute.

Bringing it all together

I’ve spoken about all the individual parts, but now let me explain how it all comes together, how to shoot this yourself and what to look for when doing so.

I mentioned at the start how it’s easy for multiple coloured lights to turn into a mess as overlapping colours become muddy and can even lead to clipped tones and ugly colour-banding issues, especially when the colours being produced by hard-lights result in saturated tones. In this setup, I wanted to create a softer, pastel colour wash and I did this with a soft blue from behind and a delicate pink from the front. The trick here is to place your subject between the two lights, that way, the body is always casting shadows for the other light to fill in.

For example; the blue soft-light behind is strong on the outside left edge of the model, but it’s casting delicate shadows on the right of the model. The pink light to the right is now filling in those shadows and is simultaneously casting a slight shadow on the left of the model that the blue is filling in.

Take a look at what each of the lights is doing individually in the images below to see exactly what I mean.

Lastly of course, we see the white light from the hard, optical snoot overpowering the softer colours below to bring it all together and that results in that extra level of visual interest we see in the final shot.

Points to bear in mind…

Hopefully all of the diagrams, BTS, breakdowns and explanations is enough to ensure you can recreate this yourself, but before you rush outside to try and find a bird to poo on you for good luck (yes, it’s weird being British), here’s a couple of pointers that might save you from needing to rely on faecal-rain alone!

Try to position your faux-trellis in such a way that there’s enough light on the model’s face. I had to push aside and pin back a few fake roses so that the spot of light over the model’s face was larger than everywhere else.
I didn’t speak about the background choice above, but it’s still an important decision to make. I went for a pair of cheap white curtains as the folds and texture not only look better behind than a flat white wall, but those curtain folds will catch the different colours from the lights on either side beautifully too.
With that background in mind and having to shoot in a small space, I wanted to make sure the area behind the model was out of focus. A longer lens like a 105mm or even an 85mm at a shallow depth of field is a great way to do this.
One final element that needs consideration, is your colour choices. As you can tell from the images above, when using very soft light like this, it’s almost impossible to keep the lights completely separated so thought needs to be given to the colours you use as certain coloured lights really don’t mix well. I’ve already written extensive articles about this topic in the past on my site, but I used the soft pink and blue here as I knew they’d mix to produce a muted, lavender purple which would subtly contrast the pink and blue in the foreground for extra separation. If you’re not sure, either dig into the archives of my -Technique Tuesdays- or simply experiment with colour combos on the day. Give a few different colours a try and see what works.

Good luck guys and if you give this one a try, please let me know how you get on. Plus, if ever want some feedback on your shots, be sure to post them in my -Share-a-Shoot- every Monday on my Facebook Page.

If you have any questions about anything then pop them in the comments below. Enjoy and stay creative!

Model: Jordan Ebbitt
Crown: Carbickova Crowns

Products Used…

Please note that I’ve included affiliate links below and 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.

*An LED studio strobe that will accept any of your current S-Fit modifiers.*

Godox SZ150R

Essentially this is an LED studio strobe. You can use it with any S-Fit modifiers like beauty dish and softbox you already own, plus you can also change this to any colour and any Kelvin you’d like. It’s only 150 watts though, so you will want to use this in a controlled studio environment.

Godox SZ150R Link

Also, although I’m sharing my own personal thoughts and findings about the lights mentioned in this article, many of you will want to know that I am now an ‘‘Master of Light’ for Rotolight. As such, I have been given a discount code to share with you when purchasing any of their products via the Rotolight website. Use my code ‘JAKEHICKS10’ when purchasing anything from their website and you will save a bunch of money and I will enjoy a beer in your honour for doing so.

Rotolight Titan X1

Arguably one of Rotolight’s flagship products, this light does everything you could possibly imagine, including tint control and their very cool electronically controlled diffusion, SmartSoft. This is an awful lot of light and is often found on TV and film sets.

Titan X1 Website Link

Rotolight AEOS 2

The AEOS 2 is one of the newest lights to market from Rotolight and with the design goal of bringing the majority of the features from their flagship Titan to an affordable package, I’d say they succeeded. This light is unfathomably lightweight for its output and features, plus everything is instantly accessible on the back of the light via a full-colour touch screen!

AEOS 2 Website Link

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.

Don’t forget to sign up to my newsletter to be sent all of these photo tips and techniques articles every month in case you miss one.

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

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Shooting in Natural Light with LEDs

The vast majority of us learn photography with the aid of natural light. Whether we started years ago with our parent’s film camera, or whether you found your passion for photography thanks to your smartphone, natural light was most likely the sole source of light in your shots.

For many, making that first step into the world of controlling the light can be a daunting one. Which light should I use and how do I learn to use it? Regardless of whatever light you choose though, one of the simplest first steps, is to use that supplemental light in conjunction with natural light and in this article I aim to show you a simple method of combining your lights with the ever-faithful natural light.

The Lighting Setup

At first glance, this is a fairly simple setup in that we’re only adding 2 lights to the sunlight that’s already present in the scene. Take a look at what each of the lights is doing below and then I’ll explain some of the finer details of the setup and try to explain how I got that more unique-looking colour in-camera.

Note: I was using LED lights from Rotolight in this shoot and they are named in these diagrams below as the Titan and the AEOS 2. I’ll talk more about using LED lights with daylight later on in this article, but for those simply interested in the setup itself for now, here are the details.

Individual Lights…

Below are shots displaying what each of the three lights in this setup are doing. The Titan X1 as the key. The AEOS 2 as the hair light and the sunlight as the fill light. Click on any of the images below to enlarge them.

TL;DR/ADHD/Artist Setup Explanation

Position your model with their back to the sunlight.
Ideally, place a backdrop behind the model to limit any direct sunlight from hitting the model.
Place a large white scrim/sheet in front of the model to bounce sunlight onto them.
Place a key-light to camera right, up high and angled down towards the model.
Place a hair light behind the model and off to camera left. Again, position this up high and angled down.
Set both your key and hair light to 3000K.
Set your cameras Kelvin to 3500K.
Underexpose your daylight by about 1 stop and allow it to act as a fill light.

What You Will Need

2 lights - Ideally these lights should have adjustable Kelvin, but if not, be sure to place full CTO gels on your lights instead.

Sun Placement - This seems like a big ask, but if you’re using a supplemental backdrop outside like I’m doing here, you can position your model wherever you like. The important part is to have the sun behind the model and I actually waited for the late afternoon when the sun was lower in the sky to avoid any direct sunlight on the subject.

Hand Painted Backdrop - This isn’t mandatory of course, but a block tone background behind the model will allow the lighting and colour you’re adding to the subject to shine through.

Scrim/White Sheet - Although I’m using a scrim here, you don’t need it and really any large white material to bounce the sunlight will work. A white sheet will work just as well, you’ll just need a couple of extra stands to set it up.

Camera Settings

Camera - Nikon D850
Lens - 24-70mm f2.8
Shutter Speed - 1/125th
Aperture - f2.8
ISO - 100
Kelvin - 3500K
Focal Length - Various ~50mm

The Results…

Click to enlarge/fit to screen any of the shots below.

Breaking it Down

I’m sure the lighting diagrams and BTS shots above have explained the setup for the most part, but I’ll still elaborate on a few key areas that you might have missed.

*Note: These BTS were taken after the shoot was over and the sun had dropped lower in the sky, hence the shadows on the scrim here.*

Sun Position

To begin with, position your subject with their back to the sun, ideally, this should be late afternoon or early morning…. we all quit landscape photography to avoid those early starts, so the late afternoon is fine unless you’re a masochist.

The late afternoon is to get that sun low in the sky. With it low, we can position our backdrop behind the model and avoid all direct harsh sunlight entirely. So with the sun behind the model, essentially being hidden by our backdrop, we can place our white scrim/sheet in front of the model and allow the sun to bounce off of that and light our model with a beautifully soft light.

The Fill Light

This bounced sunlight is our fill light, so be sure to underexposure that light by about 1 stop. The other important factor to consider at this point is the white balance. We want to take control of our camera and set the white balance to around 3500K. This cooler white balance setting ensures that the daylight colour is now a cool, blue colour.

Many good quality LED lights will allow you to adjust the Kelvin colour of the light output. This shot shows this Titan set to 4000K, but for this setup, you’ll need the light set to 3000K to get that rich, warm glow.

The Additional Lights

With our camera set to ensure that the fill light (the daylight) is a little dark, it’s now time to bring in our additional lights. I’m using LED lights here, but if you have other lights instead, that is also fine. Regardless of the light you use though, the one key aspect to note here, is that these additional lights must produce a visually warmer light than our daylight. For me, I simply set my LED panels to 3000K and I was done. If you don’t have that functionality on your lights, you may need to use CTO (colour temperature orange) gels on your lights to do so. With this warmer colour now present on our key and hair light and our camera set to around 3500K, the skin of the subject will take on a warmer glow whilst the surrounding environment will appear cooler and a little more visually interesting over the typical green foliage we might expect from this type of image.

Modifiers

As you can see from the BTS above, I didn’t need any modifiers on my LED panels as their larger surface area and naturally collimated light produces a beautiful look. But if you're not using panels and are instead using speedlights or strobes, what modifiers should you use? Personally, I’d recommend a beauty dish on the key here as that will produce a very even and clean light, similar to what I have here. For the hair light, I’d suggest a modifier that may give you a little more control if needed as you don’t want the light spilling onto your background. Either a barn-doors or even a gridded strip-box will provide the light control required.

Atmosphere

Lastly, I did add a very tiny amount of haze to this set. You can only see it in a few shots (more so in the bonus images below) as using haze outdoors is far from consistent. I wanted a small amount of atmosphere to be caught by the lights, especially by the hair light and although barely noticeable, I still liked the effect and wanted to mention it here in case you were curious.

The main aspects of this setup are that we’re using the sun as a fill light. To make this work, we not only have to soften the daylight, but we also have to make sure no sunlight directly hits the subject.

Key Takeaways

At its core, this is a very straightforward setup and although I’ve added further visual interest with Kelvin shifts, you don’t need to do this at all to achieve a cool-looking shot with some supplemental lighting.

As I mentioned at the start, the main idea behind this setup was to offer you a way to step into using additional lighting with your ever-faithful daylight. One of the core differences here to what you may be used to is that we’re using the sun mainly as a fill-light and not as your key. Ordinarily, the sun is your only light source so this may seem odd at first, but understanding the core principle of this technique will open up a lot of creative possibilities for you in the long run. Just remember to soften that daylight first like we did here with that bounce and then you can add harder keys and hair lights on top of that.

One other key aspect to remember is that the model should not be hit directly by the daylight as it’ll simply be too bright and ruin the effect. Either find a natural barrier behind them like a wall or tree or better yet, bring a backdrop outside to help block the sun.

Bonus Images

One huge benefit of using LEDs for me is their simplicity. What you see is what you get. No syncing or misfires to worry about and although with digital photography the consequences of a few blank frames are negligible, it can be a costly pain when it comes to shooting analogue film.

I’ve recently started to fall back in love with shooting film again and my favoured beast of choice right now is my medium format Pentax 67. If you’re unfamiliar with this thing, then just know, it’s a monster!

The following images are all taken with the aforementioned Pentax 67 and I have to say, I think I actually prefer these shots over the digital ones! Take a look and decide for yourself. What do you think, do you like this film look?

Click on any of the images below to enlarge them.

Featured Model: Sophieellaaa

LIGHTING NERDS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT

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LIGHTING NERDS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT ||

Exploring LEDs with Daylight

I’ve already explained the core details of the setup above and the rest of this article will simply see me exploring the potential for using LEDs alongside daylight. What follows will likely be a little nerdy to some, so feel free to skip it if you like, but if you’re intrigued by how far LEDs have come in recent years like I am, take a look at what I found.

Lighting Used

Historically, I’ve shot with strobes for the past 20 years and I’ve only recently started to play and work with LEDs. One of the reasons I was so hesitant to use LEDs in the past, was my concern with their power output. Surely LEDs aren’t powerful enough to work outside in bright daylight, right?

To test this concern, I used the Rotolight Titan X1 and the Rotolight AEOS 2 LED panels during the shoot above.

Power Output…

In a controlled environment, how bright are these lights? Sure, I could paste some watts, lux or lumen values here, but what about some real-world figures we can relate to? How bright are they in reality?

To test this for you guys, I positioned each of the lights 1m away from a white background and measured the brightness with a light meter set to ISO 100 at 1/60th second shutter speed.

One other very important note to mention here is that these LED lights have adjustable Kelvin ranges from 3000K all the way up to 10000K. Due to how LEDs output power and colour via multiple LEDs, there is not a consistent power output throughout the Kelvin range. This is pretty normal and you’ll often find that the middle of this range sees the most power, as the LED light is combining multiple LED colours to output the desired colour temperature.

Titan X1

Light at 100% Power - No Diffusion and 1m from Background - Shutter Speed 1/60th - ISO 100

3000K - f5.6 +2 tenths
4000K - f8
5000K - f5.6 +5 tenths
6000K - f5.6 +1 tenths
7000K - f5.6
8000K - f5.6 +1 tenth
9000K - f5.6 +1 tenth
10000K - f5.6 +2 tenths

AEOS 2

Light at 100% Power - No Diffusion and 1m from Background - Shutter Speed 1/60th - ISO 100

3000K - f4 +4 tenths
4000K - f5.6
5000K - f5.6 +2 tenths
6000K - f4 +8 tenths
7000K - f4 +5 tenths
8000K - f4 +5 tenths
9000K - f4 +6 tenths
10000K - f4 +6 tenths

Rotolight Titan X1 & AEOS 2 Power Output at Varying Kelvins

Tested at 100% power output, 1m from white wall, no diffusion. Camera settings: 1/60th - ISO 100

NOTE: Due to f-numbers being weird and not scaling normally when placed on a chart, I couldn’t use them directly on this graph above.

For reference:

1 = f4
2 = f5.6
3 = f8

*Titan light output at full power, 4000K, 1m from a white wall. Camera settings: Shutter Speed 1/60th - F8 - ISO 100.*

*AEOS 2 light output at full power, 4000K, 1m from a white wall. Camera settings: Shutter Speed 1/60th - F5.6 - ISO 100.*

Note: These lights are not casting those hard lines you see at the edges of the background. It’s actually the wall behind showing through this white backdrop.

Results…

As you can see, there’s actually minimal difference between the two lights. At its brightest (around 4000K), the Titan is only 1 stop brighter. What’s interesting though, is that using these lights at a common Kelvin value of 5000K, you’ll see that the lights are only minimally different in power with them only being 3 tenths of a stop different in power.

Why the comparison?

As I mentioned, I’ve only recently started to use these Rotolight LED panels and although I’ve been singing their praises, many have expressed their concerns about the cost of a Titan X1 and at nearly £3000, they’re certainly not for everyone's budget. That being said, I was convinced my AEOS 2 light had a similar power output and after doing these tests, I was right.

Yes, the Titan has a bunch of very useful features, but they’re maybe better suited to a film set. For most of us working on smaller projects, the new Rotolight AEOS 2 is doing 90% of what the Titan can do and if power is your concern, spending more on the Titan isn’t needed for around half a stop of additional power at a regular Kelvin range.

At almost a third of the cost at around £1000, the AEOS 2 is certainly packing a hefty punch when it comes to power. So if you ever see me using Titans in my shots, I’m not using them for that extra third of a stop in power and you can most certainly do everything I use them for with the AEOS 2s.

Conclusion

Using LEDs in conjunction with daylight was not something I thought possible years ago, but their power and affordability have come an awful long way. As many of you know, I’ve used strobes exclusively for over 20 years and it’s only very recently that I started to use and test the LEDs for their viability in my work. The core reason for me switching a lot of my lighting to LEDs has been the quality of light that they provide. That’s a very broad topic that warrants its own article, but my desire for better quality light was only thwarted by my concerns over power output. Thankfully, most of those concerns have been quashed and although I’ll keep my strobes for when I really do need that extra power on a very bright location, the LEDs will be taking over as my main lights.

Working with daylight is always a little tricky when it comes to balancing power, but this shoot was a great test of the power for these LEDs and although most of you may not have been interested in the finer details of their outputs, I was certainly very curious and I thought I’d take this article as an opportunity to share my findings.

Can you use these Rotolight LED lights alongside daylight? Absolutely, and I look forward to playing with this daylight and LED combo light setup a lot more in the future. As always, if you have any questions, let me know in the comments below.

Products Used

Please note that although I am sharing my own personal thoughts and findings about the lights mentioned in this article, many of you will want to know that I am now an Ambassador of Light for Rotolight. Also note that as much as I would love an affiliate link here to make some beer money, I DO NOT benefit directly from any Rotolight links clicked on in this article and they are provided purely for your convenience only.

Rotolight Titan X1

Titan X1 Website Link

Rotolight AEOS 2

The AEOS 2 is one of the newest lights to market from Rotolight and with the design goal of bringing the majority of the features from their flagship Titan to an affordable package, I’d say they succeeded. This light is unfathomably lightweight for its output and features and everything is instantly accessible on the back of the light via a full colour touch screen!

AEOS 2 Website Link

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

Large Scrim

I originally got this for cinematic studio lighting, but now I use it on nearly every shoot that requires a soft light. I know I only used it to bounce light in this shoot, but I love the softness it gives when used properly too.

Large Scrim Link

Thank You

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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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

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DIY Foldable V-Flats

I’ve used poly-boards, bounce-boards, and even white sheets and white walls as lighting modifiers to soften the light in the past, but arguably the quickest and most efficient way to instantly achieve beautifully soft light, is the V-Flat.

*V-Flats are pretty simple by design, but they can be pricey. A DIY version can literally save you hundreds of pounds/dollars!*

What is a V-Flat?

In its simplest form, a V-Flat is 2 large sheets of white board joined together on the long edge. Imagine two regular white doors hinged together at the sides and it’s this resulting ‘V’ shape that allows them to stand by themselves without the need for further stands and supports. Fancy V-Flats are even black on the other side and the ultra-supremo ones are even foldable for storage too!

What does a V-Flat do?

A V-Flat can do several things in the studio, but they’re best used as a way to spread light over a wide area. This resulting light from this is often extremely soft and flat, and although some photographers will use this as a key light, you’ll more likely find this very soft light being used as a fill for portraits.

The other popular use for V-Flats is to take advantage of their black reverse side. Inverting the V and using the black sides of the V-Flat will help reduce bounced light in a studio and is referred to as ‘negative-fill’. This is a useful technique for adding contrast to a shot where you want the light to fall-off very quickly from the brighter side of the subject. This is especially useful in those very bright studios with white walls, ceilings and floors where light ordinarily bounces everywhere.

How do you use a V-Flat?

There are several ways to use a V-Flat, but ultimately the most popular way is to position your V-Flat open at a 45-90 degree angle and then place your light between the sides pointing back into the white V. The light will bounce off of the big white walls you’ve created and result in a beautifully soft light that is surprisingly controllable thanks to how you position and angle your V.

I’ll discuss other ways to use your V-Flat later, but for now, let’s look at how to make our own DIY foldable V-Flat.

*Be aware of the room height you’ll be using your V-Flats in as you may need to cut them down to size afterwards.*

Making your DIY Foldable V-Flat

Before we jump in, there are a couple of things you need to ask yourself and check before we start cutting and sticking…

How tall do you want your V-Flats?

Mine ended up being 84”/214cm tall. It started out being a little taller, but I wanted to use it in my home studio, so I cut it down to its current height for that. My V-Flat height consists of two A0 sheets of foam board stacked atop one another, this resulted in a height of 92”/237cm which was a tight fit at home for the ceiling, so I simply cut a little off the top.

Regardless of the size I ended up with, if I was to make these again, I’d still have made the larger version and cut it down afterwards as you’ll likely be saving money by buying standard size foam board, even if that’s bigger than you need. So buying larger and cutting afterwards will likely still be cheaper than a custom size to begin with. It’s still worth bearing in mind now though.

How many V-Flats do you want?

This may seem like an odd question, but many people only need one V-Flat. Personally, I recommend making a couple of them if you can afford it, as having two V-Flats opens up a lot of options over the one.

Do you want your V-Flat black on one side and white on the other?

I’d urge you to go for black on one side and white on the other as again, this will give your V-Flats a lot more versatility in the long run. Plus, it’s not a lot of extra work to make this happen either. Ultimately, it’s your call and just another thing to consider.

Do you want your V-Flats to be foldable?

For me, this was a no-brainer. Yes, the technique I used to add hinges to mine is a little extra work, but when not being used, they can easily be slid behind a door. Again, if you’re planning on leaving your V-Flats pretty much in situ at the studio, you could likely skip this portion of the technique.

What You Will Need

To be clear, I’m sure there are one-hundred-and-one ways you can achieve the same thing I have here, but I’m just going explain exactly how I made my V-Flats and with what products to either improve them and/or save money. If you find cheaper/better alternatives, by all means use those instead. Prices listed as of July 2022

Below, I’ll explain what you need and then I’ll tell you what I actually bought to save money along the way.

8x A0 Black Foam Board - 5mm Thick
8x A0 White Foam Board - 5mm Thick
White Gaffer Tape - 50mm x 50m
Black Gaffer Tape - 50mm x 50m
Adhesive Spray 500ml
Double-Sided, Self-Adhesive Black Velcro Strip

Below, I’ll explain what I actually purchased instead to save some money.

10x A0 Black Foam Board -5mm -You’ll often find deals to be had on packs of 10
16 x A1 Foam Board -5mm -A1 boards are a LOT cheaper than A0s. I just got these A1s and stuck them to the bigger A0s.

A0 Black Foam Board - 5mm Thick - eBay

I spent a long time trying to find cheap black, A0 foam board… it doesn’t exist!

Also, you can buy thinner sheets of foam board, but seeing as the V-Flat would have to support its own weight, two sheets of 5mm together is pretty sturdy and I’m glad I didn’t try to save money with the thinner ones in the end.

A1 White Foam Board - 5mm Thick - Hobby Craft

So although the cost of the black A0 was pretty steep, I think I managed to offset the financial sting of that, by buying these relatively cheap A1 white boards. I was going to have to glue boards together anyway, so buying these cheaper A1 boards didn’t affect the design in any way, but it did save a bunch of money!

White Gaffer Tape - Amazon

You’ll likely of noticed that I bought both white and black gaffers tape. This isn’t strictly necessary, but as you’ll see from the build later, I use a hinge technique that allows me to use both the white and the black tape to hide/disguise the tape on the different coloured boards. You could just buy one colour and leave it or even paint over it if needed.

Black Gaffer Tape -Amazon

The only other point worth mentioning here above the tape, is the fact that I bought FIFTY METRE rolls of the stuff! That may seem like overkill, but the regular roll length was too small for what I wanted and this far larger roll was simply more cost-effective than purchasing multiple smaller ones.

Spray Adhesive - Amazon

I didn’t need anything fancy for this, so I simply went with the cheapest I could find. I’m only bonding two bits of cardboard together so I really didn't need something pricey. The only point I would mention here is that I barely had enough glue to cover all of my boards. I may recommend a larger can, just to be sure you could finish the job.

Double-Sided Velcro - Amazon

This is probably the least important piece of kit of the build, as I’m simply only using this to hold the two folded sides of the V-Flat together at the top. If you have another solution, then go for it, but for a couple of quid, this worked well.

TOTAL

A0 Black Foam Board - 5mm Thick x10 = £95.95
A1 White Foam Board - 5mm Thick x16 = £40.00
White Gaffer Tape - 50m = £5.54
Black Gaffer Tape - 50m = £6.29
Spray Adhesive - 500ml = £5.56
Double Sided Velcro - 1.8m = £2.99
TOTAL = £150.79

Remember: This is the total cost of making 2 full-size double-sided V-flats. You would obviously reduce the cost a lot if you only need to make 1.

Making Your V-Flat

Many of you may think throwing together a V-Flat is fairly obvious, after all, it’s just two boards attached at the spine, right? Yes, in its base form, the design is very simple, but if you want to make them foldable, there are a couple of things I learned along the way that I think you’ll find useful. Chief among them is the ‘weave-fold’.

The Weave-Fold

I don’t know if this is its proper name, but this is what I’ll be calling the method with which I join my 10mm thick boards together from here on out. Note: I’ll explain this later on, but my V-Flats consist of two 5mm boards glued together, hence the final 10mm thickness.

Why do we need this method? Why can’t we just tape the boards together? The issue we run into if we simply tape the two thick boards together is that they’ll only fold one way.

If you only need to use one side of your boards, this is absolutely fine, but what if, like me, you want to make your boards double-sided with white on one side and black on the other? We need to allow our boards to bend both ways. This is where the weave-fold comes in.

In the above (crude) diagram, you can see that the boards now fold both ways and I’m able to achieve this thanks to the weave-fold which essentially tapes the boards on both sides.

How is this done and how do we also give rigidity back to those hinges?

This is where the clever bit kicks in and this is where the ‘weave’ name comes from. You essentially do exactly what I’ve shown above, but you alternate each piece of tape with which board you stick it onto first. Look at the examples below to see what I mean.

*This weave-fold not only gives the hinge great strength, but it allows you to fold the boards in both directions!*

Making the hinges in this way actually creates a surprisingly strong hinge, in fact, it’s far stronger than if we’d simply taped it on one side, so I really do recommend you take the time to join your boards like this.

The finer details of the ‘weave-fold’

I had some left-over boards (remember I bought 10 black boards, but only needed 8), so I built a mini V-Flat to test the weave-fold first and I recommend you do the same if you have any off-cuts lying about. One of the core tricks to making the weave-fold is the taping method. Rather than one long piece of tape that connects the two boards, you have two shorter pieces of tape flipped and stuck together. This enables you to stick both sides of the boards at the same time.

*The essential part of the weave-fold is the double-side tape you use to hold both sides of the board.*

*This was my mini-test V-Flat. I cut up 4 boards into A4 sizes and tested the weave-fold first.*

Taking it one step further…

There is a reason I started with showing you the weave-fold before I spoke about getting your boards ready, and that’s because I integrated my weave-fold between my black and white boards. You don’t have to do this, as it is another layer of extra work, but I believe it makes the hinge even stronger by sandwiching the tape between two glued boards, plus it visually tidies up the look of the V-Flat on one side as the tape is completely hidden.

*For my build, I chose to hide the tape between the glued boards as much as I could…*

With that hidden tape method in mind, let’s now see the complete process from start to finish.

The Complete Build

Step 1 - Assemble

This is about double-checking you have everything ready. Plus, if you’re like me and bought the 16 A1s, now’s a good time to check you actually have the right number.

Step 2 - First weave-fold

As I’m hiding my main weave-fold between my boards, I firstly need to tape my black boards together at the top edge with the weave. You can do this in several ways, but for me, I got both boards primed by placing the tape on both boards separately first and then joined them as you see in the final image below.

Tip: I spaced the tape out on each board by using a piece of removable tape between each of my strips. As you can see in the shots, this accurate spacing then allows for the two boards to be joined easily afterwards.

Step 3 - First check

This is your first weave-fold, so it’s definitely a good idea just to check that the fold works. And by works, I mean that the boards bend both ways.

Step 4 - Gluing the white sides

Now that we have our black boards ready to go, it’s now time to glue our A1 white boards onto them. There’s no special trick here, other than I’d urge you to do this outdoors due to that spray adhesive being a nightmare to remove off of stuff you don’t want it on!

Step 5 - Your weave-fold is no longer double-jointed - BE CAREFUL

At this stage, we’ve hidden our tape and we’ve also made our hinge pretty strong, but the downside is that this hinge is no longer double-jointed. The boards will fold on the black side, but they will no longer fold on the white side. This is fine as we only need these flaps to fold up from one side, just be careful to remember this though as you don’t want to force this white side closed.

Step 6 - Making the V

Now that we have our two sides, it’s now time to join them together to make our ‘V’. At this stage, it’s really important that this hinge folds both ways, as we want to use both the white and the black sides as a stand-alone V-flat. This is simple to do though and the only downside is that we can’t hide the tape. This is where the two gaffer tape colours come in handy.

The two small strips of tape stuck together you’ve been using up until now were black, now we’re going to be making the weave with one small strip of white tape, stuck to one small strip of black tape.

We use exactly the same technique as before; tape one side first and space out the strips by using a removable piece of tape. Then do the same on the other board and then lastly join them together.

Trim Step

As I mentioned above, I trimmed my V-Flat down a little to make it a bit easier to use in a home studio. If you are planning on doing the same, now is the time to do it.

One thing to keep in mind is to keep the two flaps even. By that I mean, if you wanted to take 20cm off of the top of your V-Flat, take 10cm off of the top and 10cm off of the bottom. This makes sure that when the V-Flat is folded down, it’s also smaller and takes up less room. Plus it’s just neater.

Step 7 - Adding the Velcro

Lastly, we just need to add our double-sided velcro to the folding flaps. Most of the time I’ll be using the white side of this V-Flat, so I stuck my velcro to the back side to hide it. As you can see from the diagram below, it also very comfortably holds the flaps in place when you have the black sides of the V on show.

This is the best solution I could find to hold the two folding flaps in place when fully assembled, but if you have a better idea, I’d be interested in hearing it.

You’re done!

And just like that, you’re done! These foldable DIY V-Flats do have a few more steps than I first thought, but that’s mainly due to us going the extra mile with not only wanting them to be double-sided with both the black and the white side being usable, but also by us taking a little extra time to hide the tape where we could as well.

The cost of these DIY versions was also a little more expensive than I initially thought they would be. But, the store-bought foldable V-Flats are usually around $350!!! So I think making them yourself for less than half that price is still well worth taking the extra time to do if you can. You could obviously save even more money if you only need a single V-Flat, but another cost factor to consider is that the large black foam boards were far more expensive than the white boards. So if you didn’t want or need the black sides, or even if you wanted to make both sides white and simple spray one side black, you could likely save a bit of money that way too.

Ultimately I’m very happy with how they turned out. I’ve only had them a few weeks, but I’ve already used them in every shoot since then and in a variety of ways on each of them. The biggest benefit for me is that they’re quick to put up and I don’t need to sacrifice light stands and cross bars anymore to create bounce boards with sheets. Plus, and this is probably the best bit, they fold down to a very manageable size and are easily stored behind a door and are even small enough to go in the back of a car for location shoots. Lastly, one other bonus is that they are extremely lightweight, in fact, I can comfortably carry both folded V-Flats in one hand!

If you have the time and space, plus you don’t mind investing a few quid, I highly recommend you make at least one of these DIY foldable V-Flats as yet again, this is another one of those tools you’ll use far more than you think you would.

Good Luck!

BONUS LIGHTING SETUP!

I just retouched these model shots, so I thought I’d quickly share them here and discuss the setup where I used the V-Flats recently with coloured lights on a simple portrait shoot.

As always, let’s first look at the shots themselves and then I’ll explain how they were taken below.

-To enlarge any of these shots, simply click on them to make them full screen.

Featured Model: Sophieellaaa

Camera Settings

Camera - Nikon D850
Lens - 105mm f2
Shutter Speed - 1/60th
Aperture - f2.8
ISO - 30
Kelvin - 5600K
Focal Length - 105mm

The Setup

V-Flats

As you can see from the above diagram, the V-Flats are placed on either side of the model and the two coloured lights are bounced into them. This results in a very soft wash of light falling onto both the subject and the background.

Background

One benefit of the background being this folded curtain is that the individual folds catch the different colours from both sides. If this had been a flat backdrop, you wouldn’t see either of the colours being displayed properly as they would wash each other out.

Optical Snoot

Lastly, a hard light in the form of an optical snoot is shone onto the model and backdrop. This optical snoot has a simple windowpane gobo inside, and that’s what’s casting some much-needed interest into the shot via those shadows. You’ll notice that where the gobo light falls, is where you get less colour, but where the gobo casts shadows, you get a lot of rich colours. Use this knowledge to your advantage to create some very engaging and interesting effects.

Products Used…

Please note that I’ve included an affiliate link to the SZ150R and Optical Snoot below and 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.

*Foldable V-Flats -* ***MAKE IT YOURSELF ;)***

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 stream 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: Ring Light & Colourful Backdrops

I share a lot of lighting setups on here and every time I do, not only am I trying to share something unique, but I’m also trying to share something that’s practical and easy to implement for as many people as possible.

For the most part, I think I achieve that and although not everybody has access to all the kit I do, I still believe that certain elements of every setup I share is accessible by all. This is me trying to soften the blow of this weeks setup, as although not everybody will own all of this kit, cheap alternatives are viable and failing that, at least the DIY background and basic lighting principles involved are very much achievable by all. As always, if you have any questions about any of it, don’t hesitate to drop them down below.

*This weeks setup uses a ring light. Don’t have one? Maybe it worth grabbing one, as they’re now cheaper than they’ve ever been!*

Rip the plaster off…

So what’s this piece of kit I don’t think everybody has access to? It is the infamous ring flash modifier and yes, this setup does see me using a ring light.

Ring flashes have had an interesting life. Back when I started shooting in the late 90’s, ring flashes were running rampant as the must-have piece of kit at the time. Every self-respecting fashion photographer used one and the biggest ring-flash junkie among them was Rankin, who seemingly never removed it from his camera.

Like all trends though, the next generation comes along and repulsed as they always are by the previous generations efforts at the ‘mainstream’, the ring flash died an aggressive death. When I was shooting in the early 2000’s, a ring flash on set was akin to setting your camera to auto. No self-respecting photographer at the time would be seen dead using a ring flash, as it was seen as simply a bit of a cop-out, or ‘too easy’. Which it was.

That 90’s Look…

If you’re not familiar with the distinctive ring flash look (and it does surprise me how few people are today), it’s a light that encircles the camera and from the perspective of the lens, the light seemingly comes from everywhere. It’s seen as too easy or cheating as you can get a ‘cool’ looking shot with almost zero effort. The subject can do whatever they want, the camera can be wherever you want it and as long as you’ve managed to expose the shot, you invariably get a good looking image. Literally anybody can use one to good effect.

Tell-tale signs of a photographer using a ring flash include a big bright ring of light in the subjects eyes. This is up for debate on whether it looks good or not, I personally don’t mind it, but I know many hate the almost alien-esque look it can give the subjects eyes. The other feature of the ring flash/light, is an even shadow that surrounds the subject all the way around them and it’s clearly visible when they are against a plain wall.

Portrait photographer Rankin, was renowned for using a ring flash in the 90’s and like it or not, it certainly gave his work a distinctive look. *All above images copyright of Rankin*

The must-have modifier for every teenage girl… and everybody else.

Fast forward 20+ years and ring flashes are once again extremely popular, only this time, they aren’t flashing. The distinctive ring light ‘look’ has seen phenomenal growth in recent years and although what started out as the must-have accessory for every self-promoting tween online, the pandemic also made the ring light a must for anybody…with a pulse, apparently!

*The above sales forecast looking at the expected growth of ring lights thanks to the pandemic and everyone needing to video-chat online. Source article* *here.*

The extremely flattering shadowless look of a ring light and it being so easy to use that actual children are using them, means ring lights are now more popular than ever and that growth is not stopping for the foreseeable future.

Ring lights for photographers

As you may well imagine, demand is swiftly followed by price drops and as every manufacturer jumps on the bandwagon, prices plummet. This is good news for us as photographers, because back in the 90s, a ring flash cost you a large fortune and even today, the big-name brands like Broncolor and Profoto still charge thousands.

But do we really need that much power for our ring light portraits?

The simple is answer is no. I know a lot of you that follow my work have the ability to work and shoot in light-controlled studios, or at least have the ability pull the curtains closed in your home studio. With a dark space to shoot in, we don’t need flash at all, in fact, in a controlled environment, you can use whatever ring light you can get your hands on. And yes, even that cheap LED ring light your 14 year old niece uses to film her TikTok’s will work!

LEDs are so ridiculous cheap now than even a £7 ring light is viable in a controlled environment.

Did I use that 7 quid ring light to shoot the portraits showcased in this article?

No, I’m not crazy ;) But joking aside, if you did want to play with a ring light to see what it can do in portraits then yes, a cheap ring light like this is viable, just be prepared to pump up the ISO a little. That being said, this cheap ring light was usable at 1/60th, f2.8, ISO 200. It’s not super-bright by any means, but seeing as you’ll be using it pretty close to your subject, it’s definitely worth a play.

The Lighting Setup

As I discussed in the previous section, using that code I provided above can bag you a ring flash absolutely free! …. Not really, I just know most of you skipped the history lesson above to get to the meat of the article down here ;)

The setup i’m sharing today is super-simple and you’ll need very little space at all to test it for yourself. Plus, although I caveated this article with an entire section about a piece of kit you actually may not own, you really don’t even need that much kit. I promise ;)

As always, let’s look at the setup itself and then I’ll explain what’s going on.

TL;DR/ADHD/Artist Setup Explanation

Setup a large sheet of crinkled silver mylar being the model.
Fire 2 coloured lights into v-flats behind you, resulting in an abstract, colourful pattern being formed on the background.
Position the model close to the backdrop and then position yourself close to them with a ring light.
With a slightly wider lens, expose the ring light so that the white light overpowers the soft coloured light from the v-flats.

What You Will Need

3 lights - These can be any lights you like, but I’m using all LEDs here. I’ll cover those in a moment, but speedlights and strobes will also work just as well if you have them.

Modifiers - I already spoke about the ring light modifier above, but apart from that, you may not even need any other modifier. I’m just bouncing my LEDs into v-flats here, but a couple of white sheets would also work. Just use a simple reflector dish on your speedlight or strobe to contain the light into your sheet or v-flat and you’ll be fine.

V-Flats - I recently made these foldable DIY V-flats myself very cheaply. I aim to share the build process in a future article soon, so if you’re interested in that, be sure to swing back and check that in the next couple of weeks.

Ring Light - Of course I was using a ring light as a key here. I’m using an old Bowens Ringlite Converter which is just a ring shaped box with mirrors inside. It doesn’t actually have any flash or light within, it simply redirects the light you attach to it around the ring. These are extremely rare today so I’ll go over a couple of alternatives below.

Silver Mylar - I actually used this in a recent lighting setup article and had a bunch left over. I wanted to do something with it and so I came up with this setup. It’s pretty cheap and actually has a bunch of uses for photography so it’s well worth picking some up. Again, I’ll provide an example below.

Camera Settings

Camera - Nikon D850
Lens - 24-70mm f2.8
Shutter Speed - 1/60th
Aperture - f2.8
ISO - 100
Kelvin - 4200K
Focal Length - 32mm

The Results…

Click to enlarge any of the shots below.

Note: Focal Length

One thing many of you may not used to or overlook, is the fairly wide focal length all of these shots were taken at.

All the images shown here were shot at around 30mm - 40mm on my 24-70mm lens. The reason for that is so I can get the ring light to do what it needs to do, which is light the subject evenly.

Having the ring light too far away if you’re shooting at 50mm or even 85mm, will result in the light looking flat. Moreover, I want the white light of the ring light to be bright on the model, but not bright on the background behind. This works by being very close to the subject and having the power of the light low. This forces a very quick drop-off of light and you can even see the shadows on the models skin as the light drops off towards the edges. Look at the sides of the arms and shoulder here. See how the white light disappears and the coloured light replaces it?

Being in close with a wider lens is a key aspect of this setup and failing to do so will result in a flat looking model and a washed out background.

Featured Model: Jordan Ebbitt

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 silver Mylar needs to be hung poorly to work. Add kinks, folds and bends to the Mylar to get the abstract colour backdrop we’re after.*

The Backdrop

The backdrop is simply a sheet of silver mylar. You can get a roll of this for around £20 and you’ll get way more than you need. In fact, the sheet I used here is just a section I cut off the main roll. Why did I cut it off the main roll? This setup really only works when the silver mylar behind the subject is hung poorly! By that I mean, the folds, kinks and bends in the background are actually a feature, not just me being lazy and you should try to introduce as many of them as you can to get the abstract colour look we’re after. I simply hung mine on a crossbar and light stand combo and introduced folds in the mylar by clipping it to the bar at irregular intervals.

The Key Light - Ring Light

As we established earlier, the key light is actually the ring light modifier from Bowens called a Ringlite Converter. Most of you won’t have one of these, but a variety of ring lights could be substituted here. I mentioned that any ring light will work and even a cheap LED ring light from Amazon or eBay could work if you’re shooting in a darker environment and don’t mind upping the ISO a little. At least it would give you the chance to play with the setup or at least ring lights in general without a huge investment.

If you wanted to invest some money and get a decent ring light for future shoots, there’s certainly a few options available to you and without spending thousands on the aforementioned Broncolor and Profoto options, Godox and other cheaper brands now have a couple of alternatives too.

If you’re interested, I’ve listed a couple of ring flash alternatives at the bottom of the article. Some, more affordable than others.

The Key Light - The Godox SZ100R

For reference, as I know many will ask, but I was using an LED head in conjunction with my Bowens Ringlite Converter. The LED head I was using was the new SZ100R. I was recently sent one to test by Essential Photo here in the U.K. and so far I have to say I’ve been really impressed.

Why is the SZ100R so cool?

For me, I needed a way to use a lot of my old S-Fit (Bowens/Godox) lighting modifiers in conjunction with an LED head and this new Godox one allows any of those old modifiers to be fitted.

What else can it do?

Of course modifiers are great, but being able to add any of the millions of available colours to that as well is just too simple and easy to pass up. Especially as you can select those colours almost instantly. Couple that with a fully adjustable Kelvin range too and you have a very versatile package.

Plus, this head is actually super lightweight too. So much so, that I was actually shooting with the SZ100R and Bowens Ringlite in one hand and shooting with my camera through the hole in the other!

I aim to use this light a lot more with a variety of modifiers in upcoming shoots and I’ll certainly keep you posted on how I get on with it.

The Fill Lights

We’ve established that the white light in this setup comes from the Godox SZ100R and ring light converter, but there’s a ton of colour in this setup too, where’s it all coming from?

The pink and blue colours are coming from two Rotolight AEOS 2s being bounced into two white v-flats behind me. These big bounced walls of colour is what’s being reflected in the silver Mylar and that’s what’s creating the overall abstract effect on the background.

*The coloured light is coming from the two Rotolight AEOS 2s.*

The AEOS 2s are perfect here, as the key is already an LED light and these add some much needed colour with any of their instantly available millions of colours too.

V-Flats

These v-flats are the results of my latest DIY project. They are foldable v-flats that are black on one side and white on the other. I’ll do a complete article on how I made these soon, but for now, I’ll just say that although you don’t have to use v-flats specifically, it does enable you a lot of control over where the lights goes. Failing that, bouncing some coloured light into a couple of white sheets will achieve a similar look. The main point of this, is to create as bigger coloured reflection in the Mylar as possible.

Points to bear in mind…

Inverse Square Law

This setup is essentially just a white key light and a couple of coloured fill lights. One area to bear in mind though, is how we manage the white light and coloured light falling on the model.

With the ring light turned off, obviously the model is going be bathed in all that colour. The trick is to get the ring light close enough to the model so that it burns off the colour from her, but also low enough in power that it doesn’t remove the colour from the background behind her. You will find a sweet spot and I’ll be honest, the Godox SZ100R was lightweight enough that I was actually hand-holding it and moving closer and further away to get the look I was after.

Go W i d e

As you’ll be very close to model with the ring flash, don’t be afraid to shoot wider than you normally would. I know shooting close portraits at 30mm isn’t ideal, but with the ring flash light, you’ll be amazed at good it actually looks. Get in close with a wide angle lens and just try it.

Keep it Abstract

One key aspect of the look is that very distorted backdrop behind the model. Failing to keep those folds and creases in place will instantly dissolve the look and you may even start to see yourself with the camera in the reflected surface. Clipping the folds in place via the crossbar above worked well, but also having a fan on to blow the background slightly helped with adding a little variety to the look as well.

Products Used…

Please note that I’ve included an affiliate link to the SZ150R 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.

Godox SZ150R

Godox SZ150R Link

Rotolight AEOS 2

These are excellent LED panels and if you’re after clean LED portrait lights, these really do produce incredible looking light. The AEOS 2’s also come with touchscreens on the back resulting in you being able to access millions of colours, a full Kelvin range and power adjustments instantly.

Rotolight AEOS 2 WEX Link - Non Affiliate.

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.

V-Flats

These v-flats basically just bounce the light so these can be as simple or as complicated and you want. I recently made these foldable double-sided v-flats myself and although I’ll put out an article on how to make them yourself soon, if you need something as a stop-gap, a simple white sheet on a stand will essentially bounce the light back into your set. Failing that, even a white wall behind you will do the same thing.

Bowens Ringlite Converter

Sadly, these haven’t been made by Bowens for many, many years. You can occasionally grab an old secondhand one on eBay, but they are now pretty rare. You certainly don’t need this one though and any ring light will do, including the super-cheap led beauty ring lights I mentioned earlier.

If you’re after something a little more photography specific, here’s a list of potential ring light alternatives below…

Ring Light alternatives…

Speedlight converter - £27.99

At the bottom end, you have a ring light converter for your speedlight. You simply place your speedlight in this big circular shaped softbox and it attempts to evenly spread the light around it. In my experience these are okay, but you will get noticeable hot-spots when used close to the subject.

Affiliate Link Here

Macro Ring Light - £62.99

This is a self contained unit in that you don’t need any other speedlight or flash to make this work. This is great for macro work and crime scenes, but it’s fairly weak powered and you do need to be close to the subject for portraits. It’s been many years since I used one of these and although a great intro to ring flash photography, the resulting shots can look a little harsh on skin.

Affiliate Link Here

Godox R200 Ring Flash for AD200 - £271

This has only just been released so I’ve not actually tested it myself, but this looks like it’ll be an incredible piece of kit. This ring flash does require you to own an AD200 flash (which I know many of you already do), but this simply plugs into that and off you go. The ring itself is a decent size for portraits and the eagle-eyed among you may notice that it looks almost identical to the Broncolour and Profoto versions (both of those also require you to plug them into flashes already owned) I shared above…. yet this is a TENTH of the cost!

When I saw this last week, I genuinely thought it was a typo and that the decimal point was in the wrong place. This is really the first time ring flashes have been affordable like this and I very much look forward to picking one up myself. I’ll let you know how I get on…. if they ever come back in stock ;)

Affiliate Link Here

Portable Ring Flash - £465

This is likely a very similar ring flash look to the aforementioned R200 above, but this is a single standalone unit which means this is the whole package of ring light modifier and flash in one. This is why the price of this is so much more than the R200 as that requires you to own an AD200 for it to work, whereas you don’t need anything else at all to use this RIKO 400 and it’ll give you 400 watts of ring flash power straight out of the box.

Affiliate Link Here

Closing Comments…

I appreciate I’ve probably given you more info than you needed for this setup and that’s not even including the short history lesson on ring flashes at the start either. I hadn’t planned on this article being this long, but I spoke about a ring flash in a recent livestream and several people had never used them, nor did they even really know what they did. Like I mentioned before, more experienced/mature/old folk like me will remember a time where a ring flash was mandatory in every studio, now we rarely see them outside of the hands of makeup-clad teenagers, so I thought I’d include a little more context this time around. Hopefully some of you found it useful and for everybody else, I hope you managed to skip to the parts you needed fairly painlessly.

As always, good luck if you’re giving this setup a try and if you do give this one a go, I’d love to see the results. Remember, you can always share the images with me in my weekly community image critique post, -Share-a-Shoot- every Monday on the Facebook Page.

Stay tuned for the next -Technique Tuesday- where I’ll be sharing how I made my inexpensive foldable V-Flats!

See you then.

Featured Model: Jordan Ebbitt

JHP Livestreams…

Thank You

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Stay Inspired - Inspirational work from 10 Photographers and Artists 011

Foreword

"Stay Inspired" is a weekly post on my Facebook Page where I share the work of an inspirational photographer or artist every Thursday. I've been doing this every week since 2013, so there’s now a vast number of outstanding creatives from all genres and disciplines that we've looked at over the years. In fact, I’ve been sharing these for so long now, that even I’ve forgotten some of the great artists I shared at the beginning.

So because many of these great names have been lost to time, I thought ‘why don't I try and collate them all into one place for not only myself, but for you as well’.

This is the tenth compilation, so if you missed the previous ones and are interested in an inspiration-overload, here’s the links to them;

Stay Inspired - Inspirational work from 10 Photographers and Artists 001

Stay Inspired - Inspirational work from 10 Photographers and Artists 002

Stay Inspired - Inspirational work from 10 Photographers and Artists 003

Stay Inspired - Inspirational work from 10 Photographers and Artists 004

Stay Inspired - Inspirational work from 10 Photographers and Artists 005

Stay Inspired - Inspirational work from 10 Photographers and Artists 006

Stay Inspired - Inspirational work from 10 Photographers and Artists 007

Stay Inspired - Inspirational work from 10 Photographers and Artists 008

Stay Inspired - Inspirational work from 10 Photographers and Artists 009

Stay Inspired - Inspirational work from 10 Photographers and Artists 010

These new posts will look at a collection of 10 artists each and they should prove to be an excellent resource for not only inspiration but motivation as well. With each artist shared, I will include a short overview of their work including things to consider and look at whilst on their portfolio.

Please bear in mind that these opinions are mine and as such are clearly very subjective. I could just share a link, but I believe a more personal point of view on another artists’ work may be of more value to you over simply stating their name and age for example. But this does mean you may not always agree with me and I would encourage that. Art is subjective and like music, the best art does not appeal to everybody.

Inspirational Work from 10 Photographers and Artists 011

Adamo de Pax

Here's some good old fashioned clean and crisp fashion photography to start you off and luckily Adamo de Pax has it in spades.

Head on over and check out his work and take note of the finish on the images. Look at the overall sharpness and clarity his images have and consider this a benchmark for a high-end commercial look. Regardless of whether he's pulling this off in-camera, likely the product of medium format cameras, or whether its his retoucher applying something at the end of their process to give those images that extra pop, its a look to aspire too if the commercial look is something you’re after.

Either way take a look at his work and let me know what you think. I love the really subtle colour toning in some of these too.

2022 Edit: Adamo de Pax’s website has been under construction and ‘coming soon’ for years. The next best source I’ve found today is his Behance profile: https://www.behance.net/adamodepax

Platon

This is a blast from the past! I recently saw one of this guys photos and it reminded me 'I bet that was taken by that photographer I HAD to study!'

Platon is an infamous portrait photographer with an awesome sense of style and composition. He pretty much only shoots portraits of the biggest and brightest, but although he photographs some of the most photographed people on the planet, you can still spot one of his shots a mile away.

That’s an impressive skill and certainly an enviable one, but how does he do it? Well, there's no fancy lighting going on, not in my opinion anyway, and to be fair his subjects don't have time for him to faff about with lighting. Platon’s shots are all about composition and the subjects pose within that composition.
Platon's infamous look is the way-down-low angle looking up at his subject with a really wide angle lens. Trust me, it must take nerves of steel to take a portrait of a President or legendary movie star from this angle, heaven forbid they would want to see the back of the camera after that shot. I recall the Clinton portrait being hilarious considering it was just after the 'scandal'.
But its not just the angle, Platon also maneuverers his subject to fit the distortion created by the wide lens and portraits of Jim Carrey and Forest Whitaker are great examples of this.

'Apparently' photography isn't all about fancy lighting but I'm sure that's just a rumour ;)

Head on over and take a look at his work and let me know what you think.

http://www.platonphoto.com/menu/

Jill Greenberg

Tonights inspiration needs little introduction and once again it comes from the archive of 'togs I HAD to study'.

To be fair, I'm sure Jill Greenberg needs little introduction as she's surely one of the biggest living names in our industry right now. Recent projects include (edit: relative to the original time of publishing in 2015) all the 'Orange is the new Black' portraits, a lot of the awesome ‘Dexter ‘TV series shots involving some pretty cool sets and the infamous 'Crying Children' portraits of crying children in 2006 to reflect her frustration with the politics of the Bush era.

If you haven't seen it, Greenberg's style is what they refer to as 'hyper real' as the lighting is phenomenally clean and crisp, but not realistic as it’s often incredibly over-lit in an almost in-camera HDR look, but lighting isn’t meant to be realistic, its meant to be impactful.

The post production of her images is also impeccable (in fact up until recently her site was literally titled 'The Manipulator'), again her retouching is of the hyper-real variety and not intended to be a natural looking portrait, but that makes sense as she often only photographs 'characters'. Jill’s not strictly taking portraits, she's taking photographs of the characters her subjects portray so her style fits perfectly around that without the criticism that usually comes hand-in-hand with typical over-zealous retouching.

If you haven't seen it already then definitely take the time to check out her work and let me know what you think.

https://www.jillgreenberg.com/home

David Bellemere

I'll just say now that I absolutely adore Bellemere's photographic style. I am rarely a fan of the industries typical top names work, as I can find their approach to fashion photography a little clinical and uninspiring, but David Bellemere's work is far from that. Vogue Paris coined his style perfectly in my opinion buy saying 'David Bellemere strikes the perfect balance between sensuality and elegance in his images'.

I think I've spoken about his work before but last time I mentioned his agents site at Thomas Treuhaft but again the slightly over curated collection that they have there misses a little of his more dynamic work. (Edit 2022: David changes agencies more often than I change my socks, so sometimes a Google Image Search will give you the easiest and broadest look at his work.)

Definitely take the time to click the link and check out some of his beautifully soft, engaging and timeless work and let me know what you think.

Agency: Art Department Website: https://www.art-dept.com/photography/david-bellemere-preview/4901/

David Benoliel

I know you love a good flash site as much as salt in the eye, but its worth a visit to your local desktop PC to check this guys work out. -Edit 2022: Thankfully David has updated his website and it’s no nonger a flash site today. Sadly though, it loads like it was made in the 90’s! If you get bored, just visit his IG for some insipidly small postage stamp sized images to drown your impatient heart - I had to do the same to even make the thumbnail, the website is almost unusable :(

David Benoliel is a French photographer living in the United States between New York and Miami. He specialises in fashion photography and beauty, his style has a candid edge to it, but with absolutely flawless post production techniques and gorgeous toning to his work.

If you like what you see on his site then definitely take the time for deeper look online at his work as his Behance profile has some stunning sets on there as well :)

Enjoy guys and let me know what you think.

https://www.davidbenolielphotography.com

https://www.instagram.com/davidbenolielphotography/

Andrey Yakovlev & Lili Aleeva

This photography duo have been inspiring me for a long while and I think I've even suggested a few of you to go check out their work before already.

I really can't do their work justice with words here so you'll have to go see it for yourselves, but I wonder if their diverse style is also a trait of working in a pair as they do (although that does't seem to be the case for Mert & Marcus).

This is yet another incredible offering from the Russian market as the level of quality is off the charts. Just look at those colours!!! If you’re into commercially refined imagery and proof that a somewhat diverse style can make it among the best photographers in the world, you’re gonna love the incredible work of Andrey Yakovlev & Lili Aleeva.

I have their Behance site below as this is an updated collection of work, but there is a whole host of projects on there so go check them out for yourselves.

https://www.behance.net/andrewlili

Eugenio Recuenco

I'd heard of this photographers work previously, but it wasn't until a fellow photographer prompted me to look again that I was seriously impressed. Of course the incredibly creative content of master photographer Eugenio Recuenco needs little introduction, but here we are.

At first glance, Recuenco's work may seem a little tilted more towards the 'surrealist' end of photography, what with his visually obscure story telling and unsettling costume choices, but look a little deeper and you'll see some seriously impressive photographic talent. Why? Because these are all captured in-camera, no cgi or renders here, these are all life-size sets and all lit and composed with impeccable patience and precision.
Although his website is a little heavy going thanks to it seemingly housing everything he's shot in the last ten years dumped into one album in no discernible order, but I promise you the time it takes to go through it is well worth it.

Whilst you're there, you might want to check out his videos too as they showcase some behind scenes where you even occasional catch glimpse of Recuenco battling with his Lensbaby Composer Pro to which is pretty cool to see!

https://www.eugeniorecuenco.com

Igor Oussenko

Some awesome work to look at here and it comes in the guise of Igor Oussenko.

Basically, all you need to know is that this Russian power-house regularly shoots for the likes of Schon, Treats and Bambi magazine and although there isn't a discernibly cohesive style that shines through in his work, he seems to be incredibly talented in a multitude of looks and styles; a skill that is admirable in its own right.

This link takes you to his Behance page as this level of shooter hardly need bother with an actual website. His work does include depictions of women as nature intended, so you will need to log into Behance to view a lot of his photography, but I assure you it’s well worth the trouble.

While you're there, pay close attention to his use of colour on skin and how it interacts with the background of the shots. Look at projects like 'selfie' and 'penalty kill' to see what I mean. This colour theory is probably tweaked in post, but even still, its very interesting to see how even harsh and unnatural colours can work well together with the right balancing of tone and colour.

Enjoy and feel free to let me know what you think.

https://www.behance.net/oussenko

Drew Jarrett

Every once in a while, you’ll come across a photographers work that simultaneously makes you want to sell your camera as well as grab your camera and start shooting anything and everything. Drew Jarrett's work does that for me.

Jarrett is fairly reserved about his work, so reserved in fact that his websites 'about' section simply states 'Drew Jarrett is a british fashion photographer living in NYC', which to be fair, what more do you need to know to enjoy somebodies art. Edit 2022 - Even that crumb of information has been removed now, plus the website is now called Andrew Jarrett.

Take a look through the Fashion section on his site (Edit 2022 - Now called Published) and you'll immediately see a raw, but evocative look at fashion using simple photographic techniques, but implemented with maximum effect. I can't definitively say that he shoots film, but if not, its an impressive post-pro look that he's mastered and either way, I love the extra dimension that noise and grain gives an image.

As those that follow my work already know, I am more than happy to throw stuff in front of the lens to add depth, but the overall diffusion in these photographs makes the viewer work for the image and I love that.

Think 4K HDR and then go as far in the opposite direction as possible. Less is quite often more when it comes to art and I think the modern approach to photography has forgotten that. You know who you are.

Go check it out and let me know what you think.

https://www.drewjarrett.com

Phil Poynter

I’ll be blunt; we’re about to finish SI011 VERY STRONG!

Let’s take a quick look at British photographer Phil Poynter. Theres not a huge amount on his site but I've been following him for a while and there's plenty of stuff out there. It's also worth poking around in his 'archive' section to as there's a couple of really nice fashion editorials in there to.

- Edit 2022: It’s crazy that when I wrote the above text all those years ago, there really was almost no info available about the guy. Revisiting it today, well over 5 years later, Phil’s work is incredible and has gone from strength to strength in that time. I often write these -Stay Inspired- post updates years later, and too often I search for an incredible artists work that I shared years previously and its nowhere to be found. It’s alway incredible to see the opposite happen and it’s great to see Phil flying-high over there at Serlin Associates. Keep doing what you’re doing Phil and I look forward to checking out the incredible work again in another 5 years!

If you don’t go check his work out after that into, it’d simply be rude. Enjoy!

https://serlinassociates.com/artists/philpoynter/portfolio/thumbnails/

Closing Comments

As with all of my posts, I welcome your comments and thoughts on the artists I've shared here today. But although all of the photographers and creatives I've mentioned above come from my own personal tastes and appreciations, I still feel they are all incredibly varied, which ultimately means there will be at least one persons work here that you'll love.

Granted, we've really only looked at 'people' photographers including, portraits, fashion and editorial shooters with none of the other photographic genres being covered, but it's still incredible to me as to how varied this single discipline can be.

I think one of the core things I want you to take away from this series, is how another person interprets their subject into a photograph.

Sure you can simply reverse engineer the lighting or copy a pose of an image, but I hope you take away a lot more than simply the mechanics of a photograph.

Look at their style and see how that is impacting their work for the better. Look for similarities in pose, expression, subject, lighting, theme and colour. All of these things play a role in any image and by appreciating that in others work, we can be better equipped to express it in our own images.

Thank You

Thanks for checking out this article and spending a little bit of your day with me here. I hope you found it useful and that you left here a little more inspired than when you arrived. If you did, then this was worth it. As always, if you have any questions, 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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White Light Vs Coloured Light

The Lighting Setup

TL;DR/ADHD/Artist Setup Explanation

What You Will Need

Camera Settings

The Results…

Breaking it Down

The DIY Gobo - Artificial Rose Trellis

The Key Light - Optical Snoot

The Key Light - The Godox SZ100R

The Fill Lights - Rotolight Titan X1 & AEOS 2

DIY Foldable V-Flats

Bringing it all together

Points to bear in mind…

Products Used…

Godox SZ150R

Rotolight Titan X1

Rotolight AEOS 2

Thank You

JHP Livestreams…

The vast majority of us learn photography with the aid of natural light. Whether we started years ago with our parent’s film camera, or whether you found your passion for photography thanks to your smartphone, natural light was most likely the sole source of light in your shots.

The Lighting Setup

Individual Lights…

TL;DR/ADHD/Artist Setup Explanation

What You Will Need

Camera Settings

The Results…

Breaking it Down

Sun Position

The Fill Light

The Additional Lights

Modifiers

Atmosphere

Key Takeaways

Bonus Images

LIGHTING NERDS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT

||

LIGHTING NERDS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT || LIGHTING NERDS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT ||

Exploring LEDs with Daylight

Lighting Used

Power Output…

Titan X1

AEOS 2

Rotolight Titan X1 & AEOS 2 Power Output at Varying Kelvins

NOTE: Due to f-numbers being weird and not scaling normally when placed on a chart, I couldn’t use them directly on this graph above.

For reference:

1 = f4

2 = f5.6

3 = f8

Results…

Why the comparison?

Conclusion

Products Used

Rotolight Titan X1

Rotolight AEOS 2

Hand Painted Backdrop

Large Scrim

Thank You

JHP Livestreams…

I’ve used poly-boards, bounce-boards, and even white sheets and white walls as lighting modifiers to soften the light in the past, but arguably the quickest and most efficient way to instantly achieve beautifully soft light, is the V-Flat.

What is a V-Flat?

What does a V-Flat do?

How do you use a V-Flat?

Making your DIY Foldable V-Flat

How tall do you want your V-Flats?

How many V-Flats do you want?

Do you want your V-Flat black on one side and white on the other?

Do you want your V-Flats to be foldable?

What You Will Need

A0 Black Foam Board - 5mm Thick - eBay

A1 White Foam Board - 5mm Thick - Hobby Craft

White Gaffer Tape - Amazon

Black Gaffer Tape -Amazon

Spray Adhesive - Amazon

Double-Sided Velcro - Amazon

TOTAL

Making Your V-Flat

The Weave-Fold

The finer details of the ‘weave-fold’

Taking it one step further…

LIGHTING NERDS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT ||