Copy Me Lighting Thread 13 - Tight Spaces

Michael Sewell

Michael Sewell

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Michael A. Sewell
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AlanHoward2.jpg

A close friend of mine is an educator for one of the largest UK based training companies within the hair salon industry. Rachel asked me to go along to a training event, where a new hair colouring system was to be launched. Take a few headshots, a few of the entertainment and training, and that’s it. Easy Peasy!

Well, I’ve known Rachel a long time, and it’s rarely been exactly as planned. It’s always bigger and far more complicated :) And guess what?, this turned out to be no different. I arrived an hour early, just in case I needed a bit more time. Which of course turned out to mean I had no time at all! As I arrived, they were in the final throws of rehearsal, and Rachel wanted the head shots doing as soon as possible. No worries, just point me in the direction of the spare room you promised, and I’ll get on with it.

Erm... what room?

I was given a space five feet by five feet, with two deeply padded and multicoloured walls. Now, I could actually stand just outside the allocated five by five feet, because there was a rail that governed one side of my designated area, a table for the second barrier, and of course the two walls.

Meh!

Well, we work with what we’re given, and I was given a very interesting wall :)

As usual, I had taken a shedload of lighting gear, ranging from 600Ws location heads, right through to the tiniest of miniature speedlights. The bigger lights were not really going to cut it here for a number of reasons. For a start, they would eat into my available space, and secondly, due to the minimal distance between light source and subject, I was going to need very little light anyway, and 600Ws was going to be a major overkill.

For the background, I used a manual speedlight (Yongnuo YN560 II) at a ¼ output, and placed so as to fire across the wall, skimming it. I had to flag it with a piece of cardboard and a lump of chewing gum (note to self: replace lost cards and elastic bands), to prevent any light contamination of my main subject.

Immediately above the background light, I placed a second gridded speedlight facing towards the subject. This provided the accent light seen frame left.

Finally, the main light was provided by a Lencarta Atom 180Ws, firing through a 90cm folding Octa at just above head height and barely camera right.

Nikon D3 1/125th sec ISO200 24-70mm f8

AlanHoward1.jpg

This second image was taken in the same manner

Nikon D3 1/125th sec ISO200 24-70mm f8

AlanHoward3.jpg

And the same again :)

Nikon D3 1/125th sec ISO200 24-70mm f8

This is the most basic of lighting, in the tightest of spaces.

Budget Version:

Other than substituting the Atom for another speedlight, you can't get much cheaper or much more basic. The folding 90cm Octa was an ebay special at about £15 or £20 and works fine , although the fixing bracket is flakey!

Things to bear in mind:

Even the steepest of challenges usually has a workaround. Here, the main challenge was getting the lighting gear and model within the 5x5 area, and then flagging the various light sources to avoid cross contamination.
 
Brilliant, thanks for posting. Just out of interest and it may be a completely daft question but roughly how big was the flag used on the background Yongnou and I assume it was just white card?
 
sirch said:
Brilliant, thanks for posting. Just out of interest and it may be a completely daft question but roughly how big was the flag used on the background Yongnou and I assume it was just white card?
Click to expand...

A piece of torn off cardboard, around 9"x9" as I recall
It was simply to block the light coming forward
 
Thanks Michael, easily and cheaply done if you know what you are doing!

Results speak for themselves.
 
Thanks for this post. I love reading how a professional goes about there job.

Gaz
 
cargo said:
Thanks for this post. I love reading how a professional goes about there job.

Gaz
Click to expand...

Gaz,
Me too! For some further reading, I would suggest a read of Nick Fancher - Studio Anywhere, really is a fantastic book for just this sort of thing.
Alternatively, Fancher has a you tube channel.
 
blakester said:
Gaz,
Me too! For some further reading, I would suggest a read of Nick Fancher - Studio Anywhere, really is a fantastic book for just this sort of thing.
Alternatively, Fancher has a you tube channel.
Click to expand...
Cheers for this. I shall have a look :-)

Gaz
 
Well I gave it a go over the weekend.
It doesn't really work as well as I'd hoped but I am happy enough with the basic technique.
I just need to practice more :)
Craig by Mark Elsworth, on Flickr

I used the living room but made an area roughly 5' square although there were no walls to reflect the light back :)
I used a speedlight flagged with a black foamy thing to light the area behind the subject.
I used a second speed light in a standard 7" reflector gridded as an accent light.
For the main light I used an AD360 in a 60cm square softbox with both diffusers fitted, I did try an octobox but I was pushed for height.

Things I learnt,
It wasn't as easy as I first thought due to the space restrictions, I was shooting from almost touching the softbox at times.
I need to sit the subject and meter exactly where the light is hitting rather than having him stand allowing him to move a little.

In the past I have either had an accent/hair light or a light hitting the background, this was my first time trying both.

Thanks to Michael for this and the other threads.
 
@cowboy
If this was your first crack at lighting within a tightly defined space, you did good (y)

In fact you did very well, as Craig appears to have quite a pale complexion, and you've managed to keep the highlights under control.
 
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Great image Mark thanks for sharing your experiance.
Dumb question here but by accent light are we talking about the light hitting the left side of the cheek/ear ?

Gaz
 
cargo said:
Great image Mark thanks for sharing your experiance.
Dumb question here but by accent light are we talking about the light hitting the left side of the cheek/ear ?

Gaz
Click to expand...

Hi Gaz,

Yes, and I apologise for not making that clear.

The accent light is "highlighting" or "accenting" the models right cheek and ear, which is on the left of frame.
Accent light appears brighter than the key or main light, and can be used to accent shape, texture or both. Here, it was to provide shape to the jawline, ear and cheek. It also doubled as a hair light, creating the highlight and shadows to develop the texture within the hair.
 
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