First ever studio session...

There's a local photographic society which I'm thinking of joining, and they invite prospective members to a few meetings so that they can see if they like it.

So last night they had a studio session, which meant they had a model (an opera singer hoping to get some publicity photos), a room in a church hall, a big roll of black paper, and some studio flash units.

The way it worked was that each person got ten minutes to move the lights about, pose the model, and take some pictures.

It all looked rather scary - I've never used studio lighting before, much less taken pictures while being scrutinised by a bunch of other photographers. So I spent most of the session waiting in terror, watching while they got her to do all kinds of fancy stuff (singing, dramatic hand gestures, holding flowers, etc), and then had my go.

I decided, out of necessity, to keep it as simple as possible, so I sat her on a chair, and since she was blonde, pointed this thing they called a snoot at her hair, and put the other two lights one more or less in front, and the other off to the side.

Then I talked to her about her singing competitions and took some pictures while we were talking.

Here are some of the results. C&C (doesn't have to be especially gentle) gratefully received - it wasn't quite the disaster I'd feared, but I have to say it was all a bit of a rush. I'd particularly welcome suggestions for how to set the lights up so that the relatively harsh shadow area on the right hand side of the last two photos can be softened. I thought maybe just move the front light a bit closer, but I'm really just guessing.













Now that I've had a go, I can see how I'd benefit from a much longer, less pressurised session where I could experiment and really think about what was going on.

There is a cracking book called, 'The Complete Guide to Light & Lighting in Digital Photography' by Michael Freeman and published by Ilex at £19.99. I cant recommend this highly enough, its full of examples with lighting diagrams and goes from the simplest to complex set-ups and even 'digital lighting' like HDR. For a first attempt your pictures are good but a better and simpler set up might be to use one light off to the side and silver reflector on the other avoiding the two catch lights in her eyes. I would always tend to put the key light on the left for some reason and expose for the skin tones from that source. I'm not sure that I can see the snoot doing anything at all, where exactly was it positioned?

ken

I'm gonna focus on number four.....

your snooted light is aimed in such a way that you have hard directional light spilling onto her face, bringing out every flaw in the skin....careful aiming of this light will seperate your subject from the background, and highlight the hair....the spill should be avoided, (in general). this light should, to start, be metered and equall in intensity to your key light..(to start, from there you may increase or decrease up to one stop, to account for lightness or darkness of hair/bald heads).

your key light should be above the camera, and aimed to which ever side of the face you want (ie set up for "Long" or "Short" lighting). When beginning a shoot this light should be equall to your backlight/catchlight. since this light will be softer, (umbrella/softbox) you'll want it as close to your subject as possible (just outside the viewing area of your lens). the further the light source is from the subject, the harder the light becomes!

Meter for your highlights!!!!

your fill light should be at or below your lens to start, and be half the intensity of your main/key light, and the same distance!

be careful in placing lights to avoid lens flare.

one shot with a grey card for post then your model!

kudos for taking an interest in your model, and trying for a natural response! that is important!

In all a good start under near-impossible conditions.....give yourself credit...
I'd find it distracting to work with the audience and time constraints...and so would the model!

It's incredibly daunting, but you kept your head and got some shots.

To be honest, I think the model looks strained and uncomfortable and it would probably be just as daunting for her. Being faced by a barrage of photographers takes some getting used to.

If you could arrange a shoot with just one photographer to help and the one model, you would have more of a chance to practice posing and lighting.

My suggestion would be to start with one light and a reflector and add in other bits later. One large window can be great for natural light.

But now you've braved that first session, you can do anything....

Chris, I went through this not that long ago, as you say it's pretty daunting trying to think straight when all the other members are looking on., but it gave me a huge buzz and couldn't wait to get back in there on a one to one.

Now I'm not the most gifted guy around with small talk, the first one to one session I did felt quite strained for the first 45-60mins to the point I thought I should end it quickly but I called a break instead, went and made a cup of tea for both of us, sat down in our club lounge (yes we have our own studio) with the model and explained to her how I felt the session was going, how I was basically a shy type of guy and this was my first one to one session, we ended up having a laugh about me being a silly billy and ended up doing a 4hr session. Now! you can't keep me out of the place

Sorry for being long winded but it's good to share...........................

B.T.W. there are some good guides on the main ephotozine site for studio lighting in the techinques section.

I can imagine this way it would be a lot more fun.

I must say that although it was an interesting experience, it's not one that I feel particularly inclined to repeat until I know what I'm doing, and by then I suspect that ten minutes wouldn't be enough for other reasons.

But learning, relatively unaided, in 10-minute bursts of pressure is not a style I particularly enjoy.

By way of illustration, I used a snoot directly behind the model in my pic in the Hard and Soft competition

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