I once again had the fabulous opportunity to be a photography leader at the latest San Diego Photographers Shoot-Out. Six photography leaders from San Diego and Orange County got together, for a full day of sharing what we know with sixty photographers from all around Southern California. It was a blast, and exhausting, but also inspiring to be around so many other creative minds.
This time we all got together at the San Diego Heritage Museum in Encinitas with the theme of ‘Rockabilly Pin-up’. I got lucky with my set and was stationed at the old Texaco gas station that used to be a movie set backdrop (I never found out what movie it was in, so if anyone knows I’m really curious). We also had cars brought in by the awesome people at Hire Old Cars and this just totally finished the look for the gas station.
Because this was the third opportunity I have had at being a group leader, I decided I would try to share some of my experience, and knowledge of lighting and light modification. It couldn’t have been a better day for this topic since after nearly a week of pouring down rain the sky was crystaline blue without a cloud to be seen all day. Bring out the scrims and cutters! I also had the luck of my station being right next to a power source, and brought my studio strobes … just in case.
As I said, I had lots of luck this day … the weather was perfect for the shoot and talking about light modification and controlling light, I had an awesome set and … Lindsey and JK. I had met Lindsey at the first shoot-out in San Diego, and love the way she models. She’s great with direction and is able to provide direction and ideas of her own. JK I met at the second shootout, and I didn’t get as much time to work with him then, but there was an immediate chemistry between he and Lindsey. I couldn’t have asked for a better couple of models for the day!
Here’s a few of the images I made throughout the day my goal was to use the lighting, and light modifiers to create scenes that accentuated the natural light, but controlled the harsh shadows that midday sun causes. I’ll provide some descriptions of the light setups I used for each image.
The first setup of the day. Look at that sky!!!! Two panel reflectors on stands were used to camera left to block out the direct sun from the models faces. 800WS strobe with 40° honeycomb set high and camera left as fill to to replicate direct light. The combination allows balance between the foreground and background exposure.
This series of three images share the same lighting setup. One panel diffuser used in addition to natural shade provided by the trailer that was onsite to control the direct sunlight from camera left. One gold reflector to camera right used to bounce and warm natural light back into the scene, and one large studio softbox camera left for fill light.
One of my favorite setups from the day this is inside the old Chevy Bel Air. One light setup. With 60 photographers wandering around, I had to constantly be watching the background in the images. In most of my images, my lighting design was to add detail to the background while retaining balanced exposures on the models. In this image, I intended to blow out the background to get rid of any distractions. In order to blowout the background, and create interesting wrap around lighting, I dropped one Nikon SB strobe connected by a Pocket Wizard in the trunk aimed at the ceiling to bounce off the roof of the car, and allow the light to wrap around the models. One strip of daylight was coming in through the right side window, so again, a panel reflector was used as a cutter to create even light throughout the car interior.
One reflector panel camera right to block unwanted direct sun. Gold reflector panel low right to reflect natural light back up into models faces. The use of the reflector allows the foreground and background exposure to come together and allow some of the blue sky instead of a blown out white sky.
Open shade under the awning of the Texaco station. One panel reflector used again as a cutter at camera left, and softbox strobe used to create slight sense of directional light as opposed to the flat light created by open shade. (are you starting to get the chemistry between these two? they met in the parking lot 10 minutes before we started shooting!)
The sun is starting to come down and give us nice rim lighting, but controlling unwanted flare from such a low angle is the job of my trusty reflector again! Cutter high above model to block out lens flare. Softbox camera right to give direction and shape to backlit model.
As the sun continues to lower, and get softer, balancing foreground and background exposures gets easier. I still want to control the light though. Here, a diffusion panel is used behind camera to soften the direct light and maintain attractive catchlight in models eyes. Gold reflector slightly behind and to the left of the models to bounce warm light back onto their faces.
At this point, we've lost the awesome rim light that we were getting from the sun behind the models. No worry, one strobe behind the models to camera right creates the same effect. Strobe zoomed to 105mm in order to create very direct light and less flare in camera. Could also use a reflector panel here as a cutter between the light and camera to reduce flare further. (note small amount of flare in right portion of frame)
At this point the sun has totally dropped behind the hills in the background. Lighting gets considerably easier when dealing with non-directional light. I get to create my own shadows instead of trying to eliminate the ones I don't want! One softbox used to camera left to create directional light, and eliminate background distractions.
OK, I'll admit it, I don't usually bring this much equipment to an engagement or wedding shoot, and sometimes, natural light is the best light. It makes you be creative with what you've got and here's one of my favorite images from the day, without the use of any lights, gobos, cutters, flags, scrims. strobes, honeycombs, softboxes, etc. Natural warm sunlit flare just before the sun dropped behind the hills for the day.
Thanks so much to everyone for coming out. Even if you didn’t get to shoot as much at my location as at others, I hope I was able to give some insight into creative lighting for portraits, as well as how to think about light critically. Below is a list of the equipment I brought for the shoot in case anyone’s curious, or looking to pick up some new toys!
White Lightning 800WS strobe
Photoflex Q39 Medium Softbox
Photoflex HalfDome strip softbox with Nylon Fabric Grid
Honeycomb Grid Set
Panel Reflector with Stand
Nikon SB-28 … Ok I’m 100% Canon except for these guys. I picked them up on ebay for under $100.00 they work great with pocket wizards compared to the difficulties I was having with my $500.00 Canon 580EX IIs with Pocket Wizard. For the price they do a great job as a small secondary off camera light. I still keep my 580s on camera … where they’re great, so don’t kick me out of the Canon club ok!?
That’s it! I hope everyone had a great time and can’t wait to see you again at the next shootout or maybe WPPI!
Oh! I forgot my sandbag you can pick one of these up virtually anywhere! 
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by Evan Bishop
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