Lighting ideas?

A

AliB

Suspended / Banned
Messages
7,762
Edit My Images
No
I have a shoot in two weeks at my local town hall and they have a lovely staircase that I have the opportunity to use.

http://www.stockporttownhall.org.uk/gallery/pages/WP10.htm

Now for the rest of what I want to do I'm fine and quite relaxed/excited by it. But when it comes to this staircase I'm looking for lighting ideas.

It's going to be a bridal shoot and I need to show off the dress, the model and the venue because they all want the pics!

I have at my disposal, Four flashguns, 2xEX580 and 2x Vivitars with optical triggers on the Vivitars. I can fire the Ex580's remotely using PW's and I have lighting stands for all of them. I also have a small softbox and a snoot with grids for the EX's.

I do have 3x Interfit heads with beauty dish, softboxes, grids and standard reflectors but these are mains powered.

Got the usual gold/silver reflectors.

I'm going to be shooting from below the subject and any ideas on how to light the scene would be greatly appreciated.

I do have some ideas but I'd like to get as many alternative ideas as possible :thumbs:
 
judging by that photo, and if you are taking the pic at that angle, then the background is already well lit, so presumably youd only need to provide a flash for the couple.

large softbox off to the side then maybe?

you have any ideas yet?
 
Shot on the link looks like a single flash directly above the camera, colour corrected and with the flash nicely balanced with the ambient/artificial light. Nothing else obvious that I can see. Looks like it might even be a bare flash, but a brolly/SB would be better.

Given the size of the place I think it's hard to do much more TBH. Maybe put a single hi-light flash behind the bride? You could put some effect lights out of shot on the stairs, might be worth a try but be careful about shadows.

I think doing something very similar to the linked pic, with the biggest brolly/SB you can lay your hands on and moving it left/right/centre according to the angle of the bride, is probably best for starters. That would get the shot in the bag.

Then have a play with a hi-light behind the bride. Start with an even flash/ambient balance, then start increasing the shutter speed and/or increasing both flash outputs to darken the ambient background. You could get it to go quite dark and the bride would really stand out in white. Stick a soft focus filter on it and she'll glow!

If you can get the front brolly/SB close it will obviously soften the light a lot and if you can make it pool a bit, a very subtle spot-light effect if you see what I mean, it will make her stand out even more when you start to darken the background. Silver brollies tend to be a little more directional, certainly more so than shoot-thoughs which spill everywhere.

I hope this makes some sense.

Try to avoid barrel distortion!
 
The staircase is great but I think for the bride and groom alone it's not very intemate so you will need a bit of moody lighting.
This is a very difficult one to call. I would start by lighting the lower back wall from the right from a 90° angle maybe with a ray of light to avoid to much emphasis on it , to show all the marble relief, this will also light the colums and the metal grills , however it would be important to avoid spill on the bride and groom, Then I would light from the left with an umberella or large softbox as my principle light on the couple from about 45°front 45° hieght, fill in the other side with a very soft light.
My problem is that I have very little experience of small flash units so I don't know wether you have the power for this type of light.

Now we have to look at what's wrong with the existing photo , No mood,flat light , brides dress to similar to background behind her, lit by flash from the front, (reflection on steps)
I hope this helps a bit but if I were you I'd have dry run first , good luck with it.:thumbs:
 
I wouldn't use flash at all Ali, I would use the available light

ZX6Z2036.jpg


stew
 
Thanks for the suggestions guys! :)

My starting point was the existing photo the venue has, I need to improve on that and the defects that Phillip kindly pointed out are exactly what I want to avoid, I hate the flash reflecting on those marble stairs from the front.

So. Stew's idea of just using ambient. Yes I do think I will shoot the first few fames in ambient but then I want to add a bit of subtle light at first and then go for a bit more in the way of drama. :)

Putting light in with a brolly is a good one Hoppy and yes Mart, I'll keep it simple, my main concern ws getting enough height. If the bride is on stairs and I'm shooting from either below or on steps the light will have to be even higher.

The other, more dramatic one I've thought of is to have the bride sitting on the stairs up to the right and lit with a single snoot that I could have up on the balcony pointing down.

The other one I plan on using is a reflector. I'll need to have a look at the light source to see if there is a possibility of bouncing some in there.

Once I've shot all the pics needed for the venue and dress designers I'm planning on doing a few for myself. I've asked the make up artist and models if they are willing to push it a bit into some OTT fashion style looks and we might do some moody/sulky/sultry stuff.

Thanks guys, I now have more ideas than I did yesterday! :) :) :)
 
No unfortunately. I'm very lucky to be allowed to shoot there in the first place, they don't normally allow it but I was very lucky in that they would like some new pics and they liked the real live weddings on my website :)

I can have a little walk round which I'm doing on Wednesday :)
 
You might struggle to get enough light with a snoot from distance - they just cut out light. You need a Fresnel flash projector for that (which concentrates the whole beam) like a theatre spot. You can hire specialist stuff from The Flash Centre. A long shot (haha!) might be a Kirk Flash Xtender thing http://www.kirkphoto.com/FX-1_Flash_X-Tender.html - you can borrow mine if you wanna try it - fits any hot-shoe gun.

You can lose the flash reflection on the stairs just by moving the light away from the lens axis (angle of reflection equals angle of incidence).

When you're there on Weds, I would certainly take a few test pics, just for exposure. Keep underexposing to see what happens to the hot spots as the background goes darker. They will continue to burn through and might look nice.
 
I think AliB is somewhere near me?
If so, you're welcome to borrow a Fresnel Spot or a snoot on a Lencarta 600 head from my studio, that should do the trick
 
Ooooh Guys :) What lovely gestures!

Hoppy thanks so much for the offer, much appreciated! :)

I'd absolutley love to borrow a Fresnel Spot! Funnily enough I was just thinking that on the way home from a Christening today..............."I know what I really need for that Hollywood Glamour look.........a Fresnel Spot"

Can I call you on Wednesday to arrange Garry?

Thanks guys :) :) :)
 
AliB said:
Can I call you on Wednesday to arrange Garry?
Click to expand...
Yes. No problem as long as you don't actually want to pick it up on Wednesday, I probably won't be here that day as I have a location shoot
 
Nope, I have two recce's to do on Wednesday too, would be a week on Wednesday or another day that week to suit?
 
AliB said:
Nope, I have two recce's to do on Wednesday too, would be a week on Wednesday or another day that week to suit?
Click to expand...

Things change quickly in my strange little world, difficult to make any plans for more than a few days ahead - just get in touch when you're ready, it won't be difficult to sort something out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top