Create striking portraits like these using a hat as a gobo

If you didn’t already know, the term Gobo is an acronym that literally means ‘Goes Before Optics’. What does that mean then exactly? Well, it’s simply something that goes in front of a light source, casting a shadow or pattern. This ingenious portrait series by Spanish photographer Alfredo González uses a hat as a gobo. Here’s how he shot it.

Alfredo tells us at DIYP that he loves to use artificial light to try out new ideas, whether it’s new lighting configurations, coloured gels or accessories such as gobos.

“In this set of images I used a hat that I happened to see by chance in a shop in my town of Granada,” Alfredo says, “and even better it only cost 8 Euros!” He explains that he had seen other photographers using this type of hat or other similar objects to create shadows, and although he had already bought the hat, he didn’t have an exact idea of how or when he would use it.

To create the images Alfredo used four Godox strobes:

Godox Sk400ii with a standard reflected and grid. The light was placed to the left of the model as the main light and was the light that made the lines on the face.
Godox Ad600bm with blue gel and grid as fill for the underside of the hat
Godox Sk400ii with standard reflector and red gel as an edge light
Godox V1 to light the backdrop behind the model

You can see in the behind the scenes image below the exact set-up and placement of the lights:

For post-production Afredo says that he adjusted the colour and contrast in Adobe Camera Raw, followed up with a little healing brush and dodge and burn on the skin in Photoshop.

Here is another of the final images.