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Using Gelled Lighting For In-Camera, Color-Theory Driven Stories

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I pretty much shoot exclusively color images – I don’t know why, I just always tend to resonate towards color rather than a monochrome image. Maybe it was my formative years when I spent most of my days color printing in a darkroom. Anyway what I realized a few years ago, when I analysed a selection of my work was that that almost all of my images were composed from a very select group of color palettes. I guess this was done intuitively, maybe from my early years of color printing, or from my mis-spent youth at Art college, but from this point I have purposely tried to finesse and perfect the color palettes and theory in all my images.

So firstly I guess its important to lay down some basics. As photographers we are all aware of the Primary colors of Red, Blue & Green [RGB] and the printing Primaries, Yellow, Magenta and Cyan [CYMK including Black] but when thinking about my color palette I tend to think within the traditional Primaries as taught to painters and artists, Yellow, Red and Blue [YRB]. From these Primaries we can off course create secondary and Tertiary Colors. see the Goethe Color wheel below.

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Creating Mood And Atmosphere with Gelled lighting

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I love creating mood and a dramatic atmosphere with my lighting. I predominately shoot fashion portraits and as well as the position of my lighting, I find adding gels can give a great creative edge to my images. This use of colored gels can produce a multitude of different effects from deep bold color to a more subtle, delicate palette. Check out some further tutorials by my colleague Jake Hicks who creates amazing complex hues from his unique gelled lighting setups.

I was conducting a couple of photographic seminars lately in which I demonstrated some of the gelled effects I usually use. The first shoot was at an old abandoned Gaol located in Armagh, Northern Ireland. This was a fantastically creepy location so I knew the gelled lighting effect I was using would provide an equally eerie image.

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The quick 5 minute composite

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So I rarely do composite type images preferring to do as much in camera as I can. However sometimes it can’t be helped. Do do hate spending forever trying to draw paths or make complex masks though, so whenever possible I like to utilise this quick and easy composite trick.

It really is incredibly simple and uses the layer blending modes to create the composite. Ok, so first of we do need to plan ahead a little. As the composite relies on various blending modes, the tone of the images we aim to composite is vital. For example, if we take an image shot against a simple white backdrop, we need to use an image of a similar tonal value to achieve the best blending results. In the following example the subject is shot against a plain white wall.

The first thing to notice if we were to try to cut or mask the subject out, is the difficulty with the hair but also the shadow area. The image I choose for replacing the backdrop was this stock background image of a distressed textured wall. Notice that as it is mostly light coloured the tonal range is similar to the original images backdrop. (if you are looking for more textures or backplate, this is a great resource)

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Thinking different – a couple of distinctive creative lighting techniques to try

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I always love playing with light, creating new techniques or finding a new gadget to help my images stand out from the crowd. I also love creating mood and texture with my light. So I would like to share with you two pieces of kit that are always at hand in my studio when I need to produce that slightly different portrait.

My two ‘go-to’ items when that extra bit of mood or atmosphere is needed are the Light Blaster from Spiffy Gear and the Universal Focus spot from Bowens. Though they produce different results, they are both similar in the fact they create unusual and sometimes bizarre light patterns. The Light Blaster uses simple slides or old fashioned transparencies to achieve this result whereas the Universal spot utilises Gobo’s and pattern cut-outs.

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Interfit Fluorescent Ring Light Quick Review

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I have always had a love/hate relationship with ring flashes. On the one hand they can produce wonderfully edgy and striking portraits, whilst on the other images can also look harsh and unforgiving, not to mention the inconsistency in exposure.

However I do love getting away from my trusted beauty dish or softboxes every now and again. As a solution I recently started experimenting with a ring flash alternative – the Interfit florescent ring light ($99).

The Interfit florescent ring light is a constant light source and as with a typical ring flash, creates a very unique lighting effect and ring-shaped catch-lights in the subject’s eyes. Interfit’s latest model is unconventional in that it is mounted via a 5/8 inch mount on a flexible arm, rather than on-camera. This allows greater freedom in angular camera positioning, making it possible to use the light in even more creative ways.

 

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5 Ways To Get Creative With Seamless Background Paper

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I am a portrait and fashion photographer and the large percentage of my work is done in my studio. I love my studio, but space is limited and to achieve a good variety within my images, seamless paper rolls provide a cheap and convenient source for backgrounds.

Problem is, it all gets a bit boring when you are constantly shooting against a white seamless week after week! To add to this, I hate throwing things out so I came up with a few ideas to not only get creative with paper but to also utilise the left over scraps of leftover rolls.

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Creating A Midday Sun In The Studio – A Lighting Tutorial

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As we know, shooting in harsh sunlight at midday is a portrait photographers nightmare! But, it can produce a very striking and edgy look thats fantastic. However this particular author lives and works in Northern Ireland – now, most will agree, this is a beautifully scenic part of the world unfortunately though we are not blessed with a lot of sunlight. In fact this year its hard to remember a day when its wasn’t raining!

Hence my project to create a wonderfully hard Mediterranean sunlight effect in the studio! In fact this is a fairly easy task and using the correct modifier can produce excellent results. For my first test I wanted to create a textured wall effect rather than use a seamless paper roll. I purchased a 4′ X 8′ sheet of plasterboard (Drywall) and produced a textured effect by liberally applying Spackling Paste to the board.

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The Versatile Beauty Dish – My Favourite Lighting Patterns

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Most folks will be fairly familiar with the Beauty Dish and its usefulness in both fashion and general portraiture. In this tutorial I would like to share with you just how versatile I think the humble Beauty Dish can be and show you just how many lighting patterns you can create with my personal favourite light modifier.

First of all, I should describe exactly what a Beauty Dish is for those perhaps unfamiliar with the modifier. Beauty dishes are essentially large metal bowls, which typically are available in a variety of sizes such as 16″, 22″ or 27″ in diameter. They can be used with both studio strobe and speedlights with the correct speedring fittings.

Inside the dish is an internal reflector. This is a disc of metal, spaced a few inches in from the strobe. This deflects the light from the strobe and pushes the light towards the outside of the dish, ensuring that the only light hitting the subject has been reflected. This creates a very smooth, even and flattering light though this can also depend on the interior of the reflector. Beauty Dishes typically have silver or white interiors. Silver interiors are very specular and produce harder more contrasty light, whereas white interiors are softer and more even as the light inside gets more scattered before leaving the dish, reducing the specular reflections.

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