Safari Books Online is a digital library providing on-demand subscription access to thousands of learning resources.
- Create BookmarkCreate Bookmark
- Create Note or TagCreate Note or Tag
- DownloadDownload
- PrintPrint
Chapter 4. Kicking Your Lighting Into Hi... > Hollywood Lighting
Hollywood Lighting
I love this lighting technique. I call it Hollywood lighting, because it mimics the lighting that famous photographer George Hurrell used when photographing Hollywood stars in the ‘30s and ‘40s. Simply stated, he created a small cone of light to illuminate his subject’s face, thereby isolating the individual from the darker surrounds—like putting a spotlight on the subject, but the spotlight never fell off onto the surrounding scene. Consequently, the result gives us a clearly defined illuminated area of the subject, drawing the viewer’s eye directly toward the essence of the portrait—the face.
While Mr. Hurrell worked in a large photographic studio with assistants to carry all the lighting gear on location for shoots, we, as wedding photographers, can create the same type of lighting. How can we do it quickly and easily on the wedding day and still get the same great result? Let me show you:
Step One. | Find a nice setting for your subject, in this case the bride. The setting should complement the final image, and could be the bride’s home, a hotel suite, or even the church. |
Step Two. | Now, just for fun, let’s illuminate the bride with our shoot-through umbrella flash technique (Figure 1). Notice how the flash has illuminated the entire surroundings, as well. It’s a nice image, but let’s see how the “feel” of the image changes with Hollywood lighting. Figure 1. Using a shoot-through umbrella
|
Step Three. | For our Hollywood lighting, first we need to create a very small cone of light to illuminate the subject. We’re going to do this by simply rolling up a magazine, pulling off the reflector for the off-camera flash, and wrapping the magazine around the flash tube (see Figure 2). Figure 2.
|
Step Four. | Set your camera’s aperture to f/5.6, and the shutter speed at a value that will underexpose the ambient light at least one stop. You may have to fiddle with the power settings on the strobe to get the exposure correct on the subject. As I mentioned in Chapter 3, I use my Quantum flash on manual for just this reason—the ability to dial in the light to its proper exposure. |
Step Five. | Now have your assistant point the flash/magazine combo at the subject very precisely, so that that small cone of light falls only on the subject’s face. This is a great lighting technique for spotlighting the illumination (see Figure 3). Figure 3.
|
Step Six. | Because we’re working with such a small cone of light, your assistant’s aim is critical. Remember the big rule, too: you want a loop lighting pattern on the bride’s face, so your assistant needs to rotate around the subject, so that the camera side of the nose cannot be seen, but most of the far side of the cheek is still visible. |
Step Seven. | The assistant also must be aware that he/she is not throwing the subject’s shadow on any of the surrounds that may be included in the image area. Actually, the moment I take a photograph, I can tell if my assistant was in the right location or not. |
Step Eight. | Now, adjust your shutter speed to control the exposure of the ambient light of the scene. I happen to be a big fan of underexposing the rest of the scene by about 1 to 1½ stops. Again, you may have to fiddle with it a bit to get the result you are looking for (see Figures 4a, 4b, and 4c). Figure 4a.
Figure 4b.
Figure 4c.
|
By the way, I haven’t discussed much about power settings, because so much depends on the distance of the assistant to the subject, the ambient light, how tight the magazine is rolled, and so many other factors. As we’re setting up a shot, I’ll simply give my assistant a couple of educated guesses for the power setting on the flash, and quickly make my adjustments along the way to nail the exposure.
|
