Lighting Setup: Using a DIY Scrim in the Studio

There are quite literally thousands of lighting modifiers on the market today, but which ones are good, which ones should you avoid and… can you make some of them yourself?

TL;DR

In this article I want to discuss:

What a scrim is.
What a scrim does.
And how you can make a very simple scrim for yourself if you like the look it provides.

What is a scrim?

Scrims have been around an extremely long time, in fact in their simplest form, they’re probably amongst some of the oldest modifiers still being used today. But what is a scrim? A scrim is simply a piece of fabric that goes between the light and the subject. This fabric is colour-neutral and although they are sometimes used to reduce the power of some lights that can’t be manually dimmed, their primary function is to reduce the hardness or harshness of the light being used. You and I are used to seeing a scrim-like material as the front of our softboxes for example. They simply ‘soften’ the light before it reaches the subject.

If you’ve not heard of a scrim before, then it’s because they aren’t often used by photographers, but they’re extremely common in the film industry and have been used on film sets since the early 1900s. As I mentioned, they aren’t too common to us photographers and that’s simply because we often use posh-scrims, called softboxes.

*Click to enlarge:* In this image, we can see a direct like-for-like comparison of what a scrim does to the light. In the top images, we see the light effect without a scrim and in the bottom image we see the light quality change dramatically with the scrim placed between the light and the subject.

Why would you use a scrim?

As I mentioned above, we studio photographers already own scores of softboxes in a multitude of sizes and shapes, why on earth would we even use a scrim? You are correct of course, a softbox is super convenient, but a scrims usage ultimately came about in the film world as a way to not only reduce the power of the sun, but to soften the harshness of sunlight. You can’t very well throw a softbox on the sun or turn it down and this is where scrims are most useful.

One other factor that I’ve personally grown to love about scrims though, is their flaw/feature of not directing all of the light into one spot. Softboxes are great at softening the light, but they also focus all of that light in one area. Many of you are likely thinking this is fantastic and some of you may even focus your softboxes even further with grids on them too. I sometimes do the same, but there are times when I want a little more ambient or even fill light in my shot and a softbox with its very directional light can often prevent this.

A scrim by its nature is just a sheet and there are often no walls to direct all of the light through it. Light is allowed around the scrim, over and under the scrim and although that light may not directly hit the subject, it is illuminating the scene around the subject.

In the images pictured above, we can see the power a scrim has when it comes to controlling daylight. In the lefthand image (top image if you’re brave enough to wade through this thesis on mobile), you can see what the sunlight looks like without a scrim. In the righthand image, you see the huge difference a scrim has on the light and not only can the poor model now open her eyes, but the quality of light on her skin is significantly softer. Plus, these images are a great example to show you what the light looks like outside of the scrim too.

Using a scrim in the studio

For the 3 natural-light shooters that follow my work, you’ve just seen how powerful a scrim can be when used in conjunction with the sun, but what about the rest of us, are scrims even useful with artificial light in the studio?

*You can see that even though I’m using a huge modifier here, I’m still using a large scrim to soften that light even further.*

SIDEBAR: If you’re new here, I’ll just come right out and say it, I really HATE softboxes! In fact, I’ve not used a softbox as a keylight in any of my shoots for many, many years and the reason for that is simple. The quality of light softboxes provide when used in small spaces like on-location shoots in offices or people’s homes is terrible. Yes, if you’re in a big studio and you can pull a big softbox further away from the subject to allow the soft light to spread out a little, fine. But in smaller spaces where the softbox and light need to be super-close to the subject, the quality of light is awful and the images immediately look like they’ve been shot with speedlghts and are not natural or aesthetically pleasing at all. No hate from me if you enjoy using softboxes like that, but at least consider trying alternatives, just to check you can’t see the difference. I’ve dedicated whole articles to explaining the quality of light concerns of softboxes in the past, so I won’t bore you all again with it now, but I just wanted to remind you why I personally do not use softboxes and why I opt for umbrellas, beauty dishes and scrims for my keylights instead.

I’ve only been using scrims in the studio for the past few years, but I immediately noticed a shift in the look of my work when I did. As I mentioned above, a scrim does allow for light to spread a lot more and there are times when the light escaping around the scrim can help too. All too often studio-shooters will have pure black areas of deep shadow in their shots and this isn’t always a good look. Our eyes inherently dislike areas of mystery thanks to heavy shadow and pure black areas in a shot are a good example of this. Plus, one of the first things you’re taught in art is that there’s no pure black and pure white. Even deep shadows in nature will be very dark brown and the brightest highlights will often have yellow or blue undertones. Understanding this allows for your studio shots to look a little more visually pleasing thanks to the images appearing more real and organic compared to an unrealistic deep contrast that doesn’t appear in the real world.

The Setup

Let’s look at a recent shoot of mine where I used a DIY scrim to soften the light on the subject.

I’ll post more BTS of this setup below, but for now, let’s break down what’s going on.

TL;DR/ADHD/Artist Setup Explanation

Set up background behind model and shine small yellow light at it
Place hair light high and to camera left set to yellow
Position key light in front of model and fire it through a scrim

What You Will Need

3 Lights - I’m using all LEDs in this shoot, but flash will also work. Rotolight AEOS 2 as my key, the Rotolight NEO 3 as my small background light and the Godox SZ150R as my hair light.
1x Reflector (DIY V-flat) - You know I love using these big reflectors in my sets and the DIY V-Flat here is simply bouncing back some light from my key. If you’ve not got one yet, here’s the article on how I made mine: DIY Foldable V-Flats
DIY Scrim - I have a professional purpose-built scrim that I often use and I’ll link that down below, but here I’d not set it up and due to time constraints, I quickly made one myself on set. More details on that included below.

Camera Settings

Camera - Nikon D850
Lens - 24-70mm f2.8 / 105mm f2
Shutter Speed - 1/125th
Aperture - f2.8
ISO - 125
Kelvin - 5000K
Focal Length - 105mm / 70mm

The Results…

Click on the shots below to fit them to your screen.

Breaking it Down

Nothing too crazy-tricky right? A key light, a hair light and a background light, fairly standard stuff, but I’ll do my best to outline the most important parts of the setup.

The reflector/fill

The shot itself is simple in that the key light is bouncing off of the white reflector to camera left to add some much needed fill-light to the shadow-side. Try moving that reflector in close if you want more fill, or move it further back if you want less.

The hair-light

It’s always nice to have a separation light like this behind the model, that way you add that extra layer of dimension to the subject against the background. I’d recommend having the hair-light up nice and high and angled down on top of the model to ensure as much of the light is hitting them as possible. It doesn’t need to be coloured, but the yellow was a nice contrast against the blue.

The background light

Again, this light is about adding depth and separation between your subject and background. Don’t fall into the trap of it being too bright and drawing the viewer’s attention away from the subject though, and just a pop of light is all that’s needed. Again, this doesn’t need to be coloured, but here I’m matching it to the hair lights colour of yellow.

The flare

I know long-time followers of my work are used to me using this, but the coloured flare you see present in some of these shots is thanks to a low-contrast filter from LEE Filters being attached to my lens. These lens filters are a great way to add a little extra depth and interest to the shot, without first having to fill the room with haze. If you’ve not tried them, give them a go when you have a light coming back into the lens.

Of course, the main topic of this article is the scrim, so with that in mind, I did take some reference shots with and without the scrim in front of the light, so you can see exactly what’s going on and what it’s doing.

With and without the scrim

Below I’ll share some shots with and without the scrim in place.

The image on the left (top image if on mobile) is with the scrim in front of the light and the image on the right is with no scrim. Bear in mind, I’m using a 12-inch circular LED light as my key, so yes, although it’s unmodified, it is a large-ish light source, plus it has a diffusion dome in place on the light as well. I’ll include actual photos of the BTS below in case you’re not sure what the Rotolight AEOS 2 looks like.

*In these BTS you can clearly see how close the AEOS 2 light is to the model and where the scrim is placed in relation to it.*

*Without the scrim in situ, you can immediately see how the resulting light affects the model. Plus, look at how much light is spilt organically around the set with and without the scrim in place too.*

I’m sure it doesn’t take a genius to see the difference in these final shots, but let’s break it down a little. Firstly, the skin is night and day different in these shots. Yes, the skin is purposefully shiny from makeup, but that shine is extremely evident in the non-scrim shot. The smaller light source hitting the subject without the scrim is a far harder light and this results in a more contrasty light. This increased contrast translates to more saturation in colour shots too and you can see that in the skin and jacket. Conversely, the light and scrim are obviously far softer due to the light effectively being enlarged in front of the model. This in turn results in a softer, less contrasty light.

I’d also ask you to look at the background behind the subject as well as the shadow on the model’s right cheek (camera left cheek). See how much more detail is present in both those areas thanks to the scrim forcing some light to bounce around the environment.

Modifier Size

I mentioned above about the size of the light affecting its hardness. In the two shots above, we can very clearly see the size difference between the lights with and without the scrim. Also (and I triple-checked this), these two images are taken with the same camera settings for both. That scrim does a remarkable job of spreading the light you have. Note: The scrim is hanging over the frame, so it's effectively double-diffusion as the light passes through the semi-folded sheet..

Take a look below at a couple more examples with and without scrim:

Just like before, the left-hand image is with the scrim in place and the right-hand image is without.

Here it’s very obvious which shot is using the scrim as we can clearly see a big difference in the specular highlights in the glasses too.

DIY Scrim

A long time ago I made a DIY scrim out of copper pipes and pipe connectors, but that was a fair amount of work (here’s the link if you’re curious: DIY Scrim/Silk Frame For Huge Diffused Lighting Modifier ). As I said, that was a fairly involved process and truth-be-told, I rarely use it now that I have a proper one (link below). But if you don’t want to get a proper one and don’t want to buy 2 miles’ worth of copper piping, here’s a pretty damn good alternative that’ll cost you very little.

My budget scrim is actually a collapsible clothes rail for its frame and then a cheap sheet of diffusion material is thrown over it. Sounds pretty sketchy right? Well, it’s actually surprisingly effective, plus, if you get this out on set, you won’t look like a part-time plumber either!

These clothing racks are actually worth getting anyway for shoots as believe it or not, people use them to keep models’ clothes from creasing on set as well as DIY scrims. They pack away very easily and weigh very little too.

I got mine from ‘Dunelm’ here in the U.K. for around £15, but you can find any amount of similar clothes rails on Amazon and other sites too. One thing to look for is height. The taller, the better. I was fortunate that my model sat down for this shot, but if they’re standing, you may need an alternative or a way to raise it.

The one other item you’ll need is the scrim material itself. You can use almost whatever you want as long as it allows light to pass through it and is very colour neutral. I always carry a couple of sheets of diffusion with me in case I need to throw them over a window somewhere, so getting some is well worth it, plus it’s not expensive either. Amazon affiliate link DIY Scrim Products

Points to remember

Try using a scrim instead of a softbox - you may prefer the look!
The scrim will often allow light to spread around the modifier and bounce around the room - This is okay and let it happen to see if you like how it looks.
Don’t have the scrim right up close to the light - puling the light further away will allow the light to spread.
Play with the colours - As always, don’t be afraid to add some colour to your shots. Just be mindful of what colour is already there and what colours would work well with it.
Point the hair light back into the camera - If you have a hair light coming back into the camera lens like I have here, consider playing with a lens filter like my low contrast filter. They can easily add some atmosphere and depth to a shot.

Closing Comments

A scrim produces a very different look compared to a simple softbox and this is especially apparent in smaller studios and tight locations. The light that is allowed to pass around the scrim and bounce around the scene will often help to give you a far more organic and natural looking light. This is why you see scrims being used on movie sets all the time as the directors certainly don’t want their scenes looking like a studio shot.

The setup I’ve shared here is very simple, but it would be a great setup to try with a scrim for a few shots and a softbox for few shots. Only by doing this will you see the difference between them and remember, like with so many things in photography, a scrim isn’t going to replace a softbox as it provides a very different look, but just be prepared to prefer it.

Products Used…

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 ‘‘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 and you’ll save a bunch of money and I will enjoy a beer in your honour for doing so.

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

Rotolight NEO 3

The NEO 3 is quite literally everything the AEOS 2 is but in a smaller package. The same full RGB colour features, the same full Kelvin scale adjustments, it’s even got the same size full-colour touch screen on the back! As I say, if you need all the functionality, but in a smaller light, its the NEO 3.

NEO 3 Website Link

Please note that I’ve included affiliate links below for PixaPro 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

In this article, I’ve shown you a cheap and practical-ish DIY scrim alternative. The biggest downside of that is not only its small size height-wise but its versatility. Most of the time, I use the scrim you see listed here as my scrim.

Large Scrim

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

Large Scrim Link

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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Vintage Lens Photoshop Effect

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a fan of post-pro effects on your photos. Cheesy filters and overlays NEVER age well and I try and always keep my Photoshop to basic blemish removal and colour grading for that reason.

But recently I came across an issue where digital pixels were present in my photos as a result of my using a projector. Yes, I could have used a 4K projector with smaller pixels at the time of taking the shot to eliminate them, but that didn't happen. As a result, I was looking for a way to reduce or hide the pixels present on my model via other means and a Photoshop solution seemed like a sensible choice.

Note: There is also a video clipped from my Livestream explaining this technique at the bottom too.

One way to remove any sort of digital artefact in photos is to degrade the shot in a meaningful way to hide one artefact with another. For example, one popular way to remove colour banding present as a result of online image compression is to add grain to your photo. This grain hides the colour banding, but as I said, you are essentially hiding one imperfection with another.

Sadly, it would require a silly amount of grain to hide the pixels in these shots, so I looked at alternatives. One immediate thought that came to me, was to degrade the lens the shots were taken on. Don’t hate me for using the word ‘vintage’ in the title as it’s tantamount to saying ‘edgy’ to a designer at this point, but sadly, vintage is pretty much the best fit for what I was trying to do.

Below you can see the before and after of the final result…

JakeHicksPhotography_C_GS (2 of 10)after.jpg

Characteristics of a Vintage Lens

Obviously, I’m going to be making some very generalist statements about vintage lenses, but here are some of the characteristics of the very old lenses that I’ve used in the past. Many of them are a little ‘soft’ (photo-speak for blurred) towards the edge of frame and many caused something called ‘chromatic aberration’ to also happen towards the edge of frame.

The blurred part is pretty straightforward, although I won’t simply be using a basic Gaussian blur effect to make it work, it’ll need to be a little more refined than that. The chromatic aberration part is a little tricker though.

If you’re not sure what chromatic aberration is, then it’s where we get an almost rainbow edge to high-contrast areas or bright highlights in our shots. We can kinda simulate it via shifting the RGB layers in varying amounts, but it’s not simulating the lens effect as that is more pronounced towards the edges rather than the same all over.

Thankfully Photoshop has a tool to ironically ‘correct’ these imperfections and we’ll be abusing that to actually add them back in.

Lastly of course we’ll add some grain to tie it all together.

Adding the Chromatic Aberration

Firstly, your image will need to be ‘finished’ and by that I mean we’re going to be doing this process after you’ve done all your dodge and burns, skin clean up, colour grading etc.

Once all that’s done;

Make a ‘stamp visible’ copy of your final image by selecting the top layer and hitting Command + Shift + Option, + E (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E on PC).
Go to Filter -> Lens Correction…

3. A new window will open up and from here we want to input the following…

Switch to the ‘Custom’ tab at the top right (circled below).

Then add +1.00 in the Remove Distortion slider.

Below that you’ll add -100.00 in the Fix Red/Cyan Fringe

Keep 0.00 in Fix Green/Magenta Fringe

And lastly, +100.00 in the Fix Blue/Yellow Fringe

Once that’s done, simply hit ‘OK’.

At this point, you may be wondering if you’ve even done it correctly as not much seems to have happened. As I mentioned above, this lens correction tool is designed to ‘fix’ aberrations, so it can be subtle. To increase the effectiveness of what we’ve done, we simply need to repeat the process a few times and we can easily do that by hitting the Command + F key or by going to ‘Filter -> Lens Correction…’ at the very top of the dropdown to quickly repeat what you’ve just done. Your tastes may vary, but I run mine an additional 2 times to apply the lens correction a total of 3 times.

Adding the Lens Blur

As I mentioned at the start, the blur that’s inherent in many older lenses is not simply a uniform blur across the whole image, instead, it is more pronounced near the edges of the frame. Another thing we don’t want to do though is simply blur the edges with Gaussian blur, as this will look very odd and it’ll also be very tricky to blur smoothly. So instead, we’ll be using ‘Radial Blur’.

To access this, go to Filter -> Blur-> Radial Blur…

2. In the Radial Blur panel you’ll need to enter an amount to your tastes. A little goes a long way though I use a value of 3.

Also, be sure to select ‘Zoom’ under the Blur Method and set the ‘Quality’ to ‘Best’.

Lastly, you can also try to move the central point from which the zoom emanates. You need to be subtle with this as we’re trying to reproduce a lens blur and that happens at the edges, but I do try and move the central point a little closer towards the models’ eyes. Here you can see that I placed the crosshair a little up and to the right.

Once you’re happy, hit OK. Just be aware that you won’t get a preview of what it’ll look like until you hit OK. If you need to adjust the blur, you’ll need to undo what you just did and try again, but don’t be afraid to test varying ‘Amount’ values to see what works.

Adding the Grain

All that’s left to do now is add the finishing touches and adding film grain will certainly help tie it all together. There are loads of ways to do this, but one of the best options is to add actual film grain from real film. I found a great site online that allows you to download film grain stock for free and I recommend you go check them out at FilmComposite.com

Once you’ve downloaded their files, simply chose the film grain that you prefer, I opted for old faithful and went with ‘Kodak Portra’. Import it into your file, align it and resize it, and then simply change its blending mode to ‘Overlay’ and reduce the opacity if it’s too strong for your tastes.

That’s it, you’re done!

As with all digital effects like this, use it sparingly as it’ll really only be good on certain shots.

Lastly, if all of that sounded like too much work, you can of course just download the action I made for you instead 😅

Download Jake Hicks Photography Vintage Lens Photoshop Action here

Born After the Year 2000? - Video Included Below

No judgement here, but I realise for some of you who were born after Band of Brothers first aired, that reading is pretty boring! So if you’ve never heard the term ‘Zip Disk’ before, I’ve included a video of what to do just for you guys too. It’s only 10 minutes long, you’ll be fine ❤️

This video is a snippet from one of my recent Livestreams, so if you want to tune in and hang out with other lighting nerds like us, I go live around 7pm GMT every other Tuesday on my Facebook Page (Facebook is a place where us old people chat online BTW).

Examples of the final results

Below are some of the final shots with the vintage lens style effect applied. Click on any of them to fill the screen.

Thank You

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 technique 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

ONLINE WORKSHOPS - LEARN MORE

JHP COLOUR GEL PACKS - BUY NOW

ONE-2-ONE MENTORING - LEARN MORE

Lighting Setup: Projection Backgrounds

I’ve been using projectors in my photoshoots for many, many years now and I’ve been writing about how to utilise the power of projectors in your shoots for nearly as long too.

*Projectors offer a seemingly limitless amount of creative options.*

As I’ve always said, I believe projectors to be one of the most versatile and creative tools we have at our disposal today and they’re becoming more and more accessible as each year passes. So why don’t we see more of them in photoshoots?

If you’re not familiar with what I’m referring to when mentioning projectors, I’m simply talking about the regular projectors you may have had at home at one point or another to watch football or movies. Granted, projectors were more popular years ago as you could achieve a huge screen size at home with minimal space requirements, but with TVs dropping in price and them offering wafer-thin screen sizes without them taking up half your living room, projectors aren’t as common as they once were.

I think one reason many people are put off by projectors initially, is cost. Any quick search online regarding the cost of a new projector is often met with a 4-figure response, but these expensive projectors aren’t necessary for what we want to achieve. Years ago when I want to test out some lighting ideas with a projector, I simply bought a cheap second-hand one on eBay for less than £200. It seemed to do everything I needed, albeit with a few minor limitations, so I never bothered to upgrade it to a fancier one.

So if don’t have a projector yet and are interested in picking one up but don’t know where to start, I’ll link an old article of mine where I break down exactly what photographers should be looking for when purchasing one: What's the Best Projector to Buy for my Next Photoshoot? I will also just mention, that although that article was published back in 2019, it’s still one of my most popular articles ever written. People are slowly cottoning onto the fact of just how creative these tools can be.

Basic, but extremely effective!

I’ve spoken about projector setups in the past and although I have an entire workshop dedicated to the slightly more advanced and creative projector setups, the one I’m sharing here today is fairly straightforward. That’s not to say it isn’t a great setup though, far from it and once you’ve mastered this basic technique, it opens up an entirely new world of creative possibilities.

The Lighting Setup

As always, to avoid the impatient among you from skipping the entire article just to look at the lighting diagram (you know who you are), here’s what we’ll be shooting today.

I’ll post more BTS of this setup below, but for now, let’s break down what’s going on.

TL;DR/ADHD/Artist Setup Explanation

Set up projector with image on back-wall behind model
Set up V-flat in front of model with blue light firing into it
Place white light directly above model

What You Will Need

Projector - I spoke about this above, but you don’t need a super-expensive projector and if you’re not sure what projector is right for you, check my article on what to buy.
2 Lights - I’m using Rotolight AEOS 2 LED lights in this shoot, but you can swap these out for alternatives if need be.
1x V-flat - There is no way you don’t have one of these yet, as last year I showed you how to make a cheaper V-flat for yourselves. If you missed it and want to catch up with the rest of us, here’s the article: DIY Foldable V-Flats
Boom or C-stand - I’m using a C-stand in this setup, but I’m only using it to place a light directly above the model. You can sub this out for a boom, or you can use any other tool you may have to get the light directly above the subject.
Black velvet - I always have a few sheets of black velvet about to use as flags to block light. In this setup, I’ll be using a sheet of black velvet to surround my top light to stop any stray light from bouncing around the set.
Spiral blanket hanger - This is this setups ‘wildcard’ and if you’ve been following my -Technique Tuesdays- for a while, you’ll know I often have at least one seemingly random object in the mix. This time around, it’s a spiral blanket hanger!

Camera Settings

Camera - Nikon D850
Lens - 24-70mm f2.8 / 105mm f2
Shutter Speed - 1/125th
Aperture - f2
ISO - 160
Kelvin - varies based on shot from 3000K - 6500K
Focal Length - 105mm / 70mm

The Results…

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

Breaking it Down

As you can tell from the shots above, there isn’t anything too complex to break down here. We have a projected background behind, with our model in the foreground being lit by a very directional top light along with a subtle coloured fill.

But let’s explain what everything is doing.

Spiral Blanket Hanger

Look, let’s expose the elephant in the room right away. What’s this spiral blanket hanger all about?

I wasn’t aware these things were even a thing, but as I was looking for a metal spiral to support my black velvet around my light, I came across them. Their ‘real’ job is to hang sheets and blankets up in small spaces and it looked to be a perfect solution for what I was after.

If you’re still not sure how I intended to use it, take a look at the images below. Click on any of them to enlarge them.

Before I explain this, I’m sharing this with you in confidence. If any of these shots end up on @shi**yrigs, I’ll find you!

Why the contraption?

One issue with working with multiple light sources in smaller spaces is one light affecting another light, or light contamination. For this setup, I wanted to have a projected image on the background behind my subject and then light my subject separately in the foreground. Long-story-short; to make the image bigger on the background to fill the scene behind the subject, you have to move your projector further away, but to do this, your subject may get in the way of the projected light. There are ways around this, like using a rear-projection technique or even placing the projector up high and shooting it over the subject, but again, this needs a lot of space.

*Moving the projector further back, results in the projected image hitting the model.*

You could of course bring the model further forward to compensate for this, but then you, the photographer, also has to be further away and this makes the background image smaller in your shot unless you use a longer lens to compress the foreground and background…. I promised to make this a long-story-short, so essentially what needs to happen for this to work, is your subject needs to be fairly close to the background so as to keep the projected image nice and big in your shot. With the subject being close to the background, we need to ensure that none of the lights illuminating the model, fall onto the background.

Barn doors often have gaps between each door that let a lot of light out.

This is where the DIY cowl on my light comes in, as although that light is very close to the background, the black velvet cowl stops any of that light from contaminating the projected image behind. It sounds overly complicated, but essentially the cowl just enables me to very precisely control the spread of light from above. Some of you may suggest barn doors as an alternative here, but barn doors are pretty crap in reality, as barn doors often have huge gaps between each of the four doors and this allows a lot of light to spread between them. It’s for this reason, I rarely use them on set.

Affixing the light-cowl

The way I attach and place my velvet light cowl over the light will vary wildly based on the type of light you have, and the way you attach your light overhead will also affect this too. I’m using a Manfrotto Super-clamp to attach everything to the C-stand, and then attached to that is an extension arm holding a Lite-Tire swivel and lastly, a mini-spring clamp is holding the metal spiral.

There must be far better ways to accomplish the same thing here, but seeing as I had a bunch of lighting grip and clamps here already, I just cobbled this together. If you have alternative recommendations, by all means, let me know.

Here are the links if you’re interested:

Cowl Adjustability

One thing I like about this cowl is the ability to adjust the amount of light being funnelled down. Due to the spiral metal loop, I can completely encase the light or I can leave a gap at the front to spill more light forward if needed. The other benefit of using black velvet fabric on the ring above is the ability to adjust the depth of the chimney of fabric up and down. If I want a very deep focused tube of light, I can let a lot of the fabric hang down, but if I only want a little amount of control, I can raise the fabric up to allow more light to spread.

I appreciate half the article is about a blanket hanger, but I know that if I didn’t explain it, I’d get a ton of questions on it and to be fair, I think its a pretty cool and very cost-effective solution to a lighting problem that you may well encounter yourself at some point. So here are all the details if you wanted to try out this setup yourself.

Lastly… I promise.

These blanket driers usually come in round spirals, not in the geometric spiral shape you see me using here. It’s worth getting the one with straight curves like mine as it makes it easier to clamp and also easier to enlarge when like this. I actually opened up my spiral a little to accommodate the AEOS 2 light, but you may not need to with yours.

Fill-Light

I’ve just explained the top light as well as the velvet cowl that controls the resulting light, next we need to look at what we’re going to do with all those shadows created by that very directional light directly overhead.

Adding a fill light isn’t too tricky and there are a few ways you can go about it, but first I’ll explain what I used.

My fill-light was another Rotolight AEOS 2 and this was pointed into one of my DIY V-Flats. Both of which were positioned just out of shot to camera-right.

If you missed my in-depth article on making your own DIY V-Flats, you can catch up via the link here: DIY Foldable V-Flats

As you can see from the shot above, I set my light to a colour that was already present in my image being projected behind the subject. That way, any fill light we see on the model in the foreground of the shot, takes on the appearance of the colours behind and this all helps to tie the shot together. Side-note: One thing I really like about the RGB Rotolight LED here, is the ability to fine-tune the colour to exactly match whatever projected image I have. This is trickier to do with coloured gels as you often don’t have exactly the right colour on-hand.

If you’re not too bothered about your image looking amazing, you could always substitute this bounced light with a large softbox or umbrella here instead.

Projector Placement

As I mentioned in the spiral-hanger section above, the projector is off to camera-left and pointed towards the background. The placement of this can be tricky as we’re looking to achieve a few things.

If you position your projector correctly, you should be able to keystone out any distorted lines. Even in shots like this that have very pronounced leading lines.

An image that isn’t too distorted. If we place our projector too far to one side and shine it onto the background, we won’t be able to correct the image distortion via the internal keystone options on the projector.
No projected light on the model. We want to light the background, but not the model as she will be lit separately with other lights.
A large enough image to fill the background. This will depend on the lens length you use, For example, you’ll need a smaller projected image behind the subject if you’re using a 105mm compared to a 70mm lens.
Image orientation used. I’m using portrait orientation images behind my model as I’m shooting photos with my camera in portrait orientation. I have to affix my projector in an upright position to do this, but if you want to shoot landscape shots, you won’t need to worry about that.

The above points are all worth considering and you’ll need to play with what fits with your room or shooting space. As you can see in the lighting diagram above; I ultimately went for a projector position just off to my left that was as close to hitting the model without the light touching her. This meant I was able to get a big enough image without the distortion being too dramatic. In fact, you can see that I was able to pretty effectively correct any distortions in the image behind and this is especially noticeable in the leading-lines of the corridor shots behind the model. The distortions that are created by placing the projector off-axis like this can be a pain to correct. It’s worth practising with images behind the subject that don’t have any straight lines or geometric patterns at first.

Consider your projected image

There is practically no limit to how creative you can get with the image behind your model, but here are a couple of pointers to get you started.

Look for an image that has some lighting direction already present. You may have noticed that all the images I chose to project, had a very noticeable top-light in them. From the corridor lights to the moonlight streaming through the trees above, all the images behind the model had a strong directional light above. I chose these as I knew that the model would have a very strong directional light on her and I wanted the background to match. It seems obvious I know, but it will look really odd if you don’t try to match the background and foreground light like this.
Consider the colours. I haven’t spoken about the colour differences in projector bulbs compared to flash and LEDs in this article and if you’re interested in some of the more detailed topics about using a projector, you’ll have to check out my Art of Projection workshop. But one way you can cheat the issue of mismatched colour balancing in various lighting sources is to lean into a heavy colour cast. You may have noticed that the projected images all had a colour to them and I do this to hide the inherent colour of the projector bulb. Finding a stylised image like these will help with the colour grade later on and leaning into a colour like this saves a ton of time over trying to match colours and Kelvins on the day.

Points to Remember

If your gauge of difficulty is based on how many lights you use in a shot, then this setup isn’t too tricky. That being said, there are a few areas you need to be mindful of, especially if you’ve never used a projector in your shoot before.

Keep the projected light from hitting the model. We want to project an image on the background, not light the model with our projector. Try to break this setup into two parts; the background lighting and the model lighting and keep them both separate.
Keep the subject light off of the background. See point one above, but essentially we need to keep all of the subject lights off of the projected image behind. If space is tight, you can bring your model in close to the background wall, but in doing so, be sure to use a very controlled light on the model. In this setup, I used a DIY light-cowl to keep a very directional light above the model from spilling onto the background. I know it looked a little janky, but it was surprisingly effective!
Consider your projected image. There is practically no limit to how creative you can get with the image behind your model, but here are a couple of pointers to get you started. Look for an image that has some directional lighting in it, that way you can replicate that light on your model. By doing this, you create a more cohesive image over choosing a flat background and adding dynamic lighting to your subject which immediately looks fake. Also, consider colours. I’ve found it better to choose a background with a tighter colour palette, or at least one with analogous colours. Again, this helps to sell the scene when the background colours are easy to match on the subject.
Decide whether you want to create an artistic shot or fool the audience. I’ve personally used projectors to both fool the audience into believing the projected background is real, as well as simply use the projected image as a creative tool to add interest to a background. There’s no right or wrong answer here, but I will say that simply using a projector for creative effect, is easier than using it to replicate a real scene. In this shoot, the singer/model had a bold red leather jacket they wanted to wear so I decided to use a very blue background to compliment and contrast that jacket. The scene looks somewhat believable, but I’m using it for creative effect and colour-contrast over a realistic environmental shot. It’s worth considering which you want to achieve before setting up.

Using a projector to add a realistic background to your shot is just one use for it, but don’t forget that you can use other creative elements too.

You can also use a projector to add purely creative elements to your backgrounds as well. Choose how creative you want to be with it beforehand.

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!

Featured model/singer: Eli Annina

Online One-2-One Workshops Now Available

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Online One-2-One Workshops Now Available ||

If you’re looking to take your knowledge of projector photography further, I run online one-2-one workshops of my very popular ‘Art of Projection’ course. To learn more and see what other online courses are available, check the link below.

Online Workshops

Products Used…

Rotolight AEOS 2

AEOS 2 Website Link

Customisable Lighting Cowl Adjustment Brace in Argenteous Silver

Look, we both know you read this whole article just to get your moist-mitts on the link to my patented (pending) lighting cowl. And that’s okay. The wait is over, here it is.

Definitely not just a cheap metal spiral

Black Velvet

I always have a few sheets of black velvet on set for flagging light, but I bought this extra cheap sheet to act as a cowl for this one task. In reality, I should have gotten a better-quality piece as this one here is very thin, but I guess this makes sense given how cheap it is. I recommend you get something thicker than this personally.

Cheap black velvet sheet

Thank You

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Number 1

Lighting Technique: Sci-Fi Top Light

This lighting technique is certainly one of the darker-looking ones I’ve ever shared, but with dramatic top lighting and a subdued fill, the final shot can certainly catch your eye. Although I love this setup, I’m surprised to see it taking the top spot, but it just goes to show how dramatic and engaging lighting can catch a viewer’s attention.

If you’re after a simple, yet very cool-looking setup with some sci-fi vibes, give this one a try!

Lighting Technique: Sci-Fi Top Light

Number 2

DIY Diffusion Filter

As I told you guys over 18 months ago, the cinematic-style shots are exploding right now as we begin to become tired of the overly saccharin Instagram bombardment of clinical-looking portraits. One feature of these cinematic-style portraits we are starting to see is the more atmospheric settings the images appear to be taken in. TV and movies don’t appear to shoot a single scene these days without a chain-smoker’s convention-worth of haze and smoke, but what if you don’t have access to a smoke machine or even the time to use one? One trick to getting that atmospheric look, is to add a simple lens filter and a popular choice for me is the ‘diffusion’ filter.

Don’t want to buy one? Make one yourself on the cheap with this simple DIY diffusion filter method.

Seeing this article at number two is of no surprise as who doesn’t want to add cool in-camera lighting effects to their shots for a few quid?! Blue Peter badge at the ready…. Go!

DIY Diffusion Filter

Number 3

DIY Foldable V-Flats

Once again, an article in the Top 5 on how I can save you money in ‘the great depression 2.0’! Big shock!

Money for the ‘please let me turn the heating on in 2023’ fund aside, V-Flats are actually an incredibly useful tool to have in your arsenal and I honestly use my DIY V-flats in nearly every single shoot that I do now. Whether you’re using them to block light, bounce light or soften light, these V-flats do it all so if you don’t have any yet, take this as a wake-up call. Plus this article shows you how to make them far more cheaply than having to buy them, so what’s not to love?

DIY Foldable V-Flats

Number 4

Lighting Setup: Simple Long Exposure Portraits

It’s fantastic to see this article in the top spots as some of my more ‘arty-farty’ setups rarely do as well as I would like. By arty-farty I usually mean long-exposure shots as the results are often slightly blurred and filled with motion that tends to put off many as they chase the more clinical 16K resolution ‘let me see the DNA in the pores of my model’ level of sharpness.

I’m guessing this particular lighting technique saw some extra traction due to it being a very subtle long-exposure technique, but subtle or not, the results speak for themselves as I love how this setup blends movement with sharpness. If you somehow missed this one the first time around, be sure to check it out again now.

Lighting Setup: Simple Long Exposure Portraits

Number 5

Lighting Setup: Pastel Coloured Light and Gobos

Towards the second half of 2022, I started to play with and use LED lights in my shoots. Fast forward to the first week of 2023 and I just finished a shoot where I ONLY used LEDs for the entire shoot. Not a single flash. I think it’s safe to say I’ll be continuing to use LED lighting more and more in 2023, but to see one of my first forays into LED make it into the Top 5 articles last year is certainly pretty cool.

If you missed it, this setup uses soft and hard LED light to cast some visually engaging patterns on the subject via a DIY gobo in the form of a cheap flower trellis. This is a very creative and colourful setup that results in some gorgeously soft pastel colours along with some visually engaging textured light. This one is definitely worth a look if you’re after some inspiration for your next shoot.

Lighting Setup: Pastel Coloured Light and Gobos

Closing comments…

Did you recognise any of those articles? Miss any of them when they were originally posted? Either way, this is a nice little catch-up on some of my more popular posts from the previous year and not only is it a handy reminder for you guys, but it’s also a useful process for me to see what type of content is more popular than others.

More often than not, these annual reviews see some surprises for me in the Top 5. Not articles that shouldn’t be there, but more often I’m surprised at certain articles that didn't make it, articles that I thought would be popular, but weren't. This year actually didn't have any surprises, so either I’m brainwashing you to like more of the things that I like, or I’m just getting better at understanding what you like :D

So, seeing as there weren’t any rouge articles that made the top 5, here’s a bonus article that was indeed number 6 on the list anyway.

Bonus Article/Number 6

Lighting Setup: Caustic Portrait Light

Lighting Setup: Caustic Portrait Light

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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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JHP Xmas 2022 Lightroom Preset Pack

As a thank you to my most dedicated members of my community, I’ve put together an exclusive Lightroom Preset pack to say thanks for all the chats and discussions we’ve had in some of my Live Streams this year.

Below you’ll find a pack of 10 exclusive Presets that have been designed and used for some of the shots I’ve had this year. As you might expect, they are heavily tailored towards coloured gels and studio strobe images. As a result, these are not your generic ‘one-click’ solution to many shots, but the Presets work best as a foundation for you to adjust and develop for your own needs.

Tips on using my Presets

As I alluded to above, many Presets are often a one-click solution, but consequently they may not be doing anything too dramatic to the final image. Much of my work involves very bold colours and to maintain as much data in the raw file as possible when shooting such saturated colours, I often underexposure my images. With this in mind, you may notice that some of these Presets are a little strong when you initially use them. My advice is to consider playing with the Kelvin (white balance) and exposure after you’ve applied them to get a better fit for your work.

Take Part in the Community Live Streams

With that being said, enjoy the free pack and have fun playing with them on your own shots. I look forward to seeing what you produce with them.

As always, if you’d like to share what you create with me and the rest of my colour-nerd community, feel free to take part in my weekly -Share-a-Shoot- each Monday on my Facebook Page. Every fortnight I also go live and stream via my FB Page to offer critique and feedback on community images too. I’d love to see you there.