[7-01] “Consider lighting"

Consider the light:

In portraits, I use three styles. I have tried others, though for almost everything I do now, these three are good enough:

1.1—large light (60"), diffused, placed front/above
1.2—Smaller light¹ (22”), above/off-set (45˚, 45˚)
1.3—22" raised to eye-level, directed at the ceiling

The first two often need a rear light behind the person to get proper color and brightness on the paper backdrop. Fall-off from the key sometimes contributes exposure, but not enough for a clean, evenly lit, and uniformly bright backdrop. ​

A 3rd source of light (optional): "fill" light, lifting the shadows. I had a strobe, under the subject, but now incorporate the warm, ambient sunlight, reflected off the floor.

Lights can be adjusted wirelessly. Strobes fire a quick "pulse" of light, not a "stream", measured by flash power. Here, exposure is determined only by aperture and ISO (!).

For fill (constant), exposure is modulated by those two, +shutter speed (length of exposure).

An ND filter, over the lens, darkens everything by 4 f-stops (6.25% transmittance).

Why? Analogy: for a violin, dampening the strings by 93.75% allows control in the quiet regions, as the violinist can always maximize loudness. The ND filter is the same: it makes everything darker because studio photographers have no issue making things bright.

The point of all this? to reduce time spent in Photoshop, given anything can be done in PS.

¹–I mean the light modifier