Head to toe – full sized window – incandescent lamp – all included in the frame!

Is this a lighting problem that would make your head spin, or cringe away and avoid another approach because you feel you don’t have the gear? Read on, you may be stopping before you start!

We’re not talking about that faux, broad light look created by softboxes, that often leaves deep shadows. We’re talking about REALLY soft light.

How do you get it in a hurry, with minimal gear?

Think outside your gear.

Respond to your environment.

Realize the potential of all the elements you have been given.

And then you’re free to relate to your subject for the most engaging expression.

Here’s how to simplify your lighting quest by understanding the MOTIVATION – of the light in an environment.  The lighting from the picture window is northlight – extremely soft.  So to match that, you need a very large light source.  The room.

What is the ‘working‘ light source?  We’ll call it the ‘hot zone’ and it’s anywhere light directly from your strobes open, naked, bare bulbed tube hit’s a wall.  The strobe is no-longer the light source – transfer your thinking away from that.  The light then bounces from the wall – onto your subject.  What this allows you is to control the ratios of light on your subject.  The ratio controls the shaping of your subject.

What’s wrong with this image?

Canon 1ds 135mm lens – F/4.0 – ISO 320 – 1/250 second

Listen to the shadows!

The motivation is wrong – if there’s a picture window behind the subject, the eye nearest the window should not have a shadow on it! The MOTIVATION of the light is not right!

in the image above I’ve thought in terms of ‘fill light’ and put my strobe to the subject’s front (in diagram above it would be the bottom wall of the room) to generically fill the window light.

In the correct pattern as shown in our lead image (illustrated here again to the right) – rolls the light around the subject from the side offering a nice open and soft shadow toward the couch’s front and to the left of the subject.

Do you see the difference?

This is the difference between photographic lighting – and motivated and inspired lighting.  A fine distinction, but one that once pointed out – your realize your eye was giving you some unnatural feedback about. The unnatural feedback is an unconscious barrier to acceptance and understanding of your image by the viewer – remove it and you give them a better gateway to experience.

Trust the instincts your natural eye leads with as it has been trained by years of interpretation of it’s natural surroundings.

Changing the position of the light in the room, changes the Hot Zones

The result is a change in the amount of light on each wall – the amount is the ratio of light that will illuminate your subject.  So you can change the ratio and shaping of your subject by moving your light through the room.

Shadowless shaping

The bare bulb technique is faster to learn than a softbox.

Produces more natural than owning a custom studio.

Do you see any shadows you can learn from? Not really, but the subject is still nicely contoured by a very gentle cheek and eye shading.

The catch is that you’ll need a bare bulb so your average shoe flash won’t do it – you’ll need a Quantum Q Flash, Sunpak 120J, Alien Bee, Monoblock, or ProPhoto head without reflector.

Any of the classic lighting styles can be softly mimicked with very little effort in the same room by moving the position of the single bare bulb:

• Short Lighting
• Loop Lighting
• Broad Light pattern
• Closed Loop Lighting
• Rembrandt light portraits
• Side lighting
• Butterfly – with or without lens flair
• Dietrich – Paramount Portrait lighting
• Backlight portait with hard light or soft
• Wraparound lighting
• Crossover lighting
• Profile lighitng
• Dramatic Overexposure

If you’re careful when you let a little direct from the bulb light spill onto your subject the list doubles.

I will cover these styles in future posts.

If you can swallow this yucky corporate video there’s probably a nugget there for you.

I use the extra small softbox, as you can see in my bag, but I always use it hand held because the principle:

the larger your light source, the softer your light

Only applies if you are computing your exposure solely on the quantity of light that is coming from that source.

Your light source is relative to the subject.

A 18″ softbox is a small light source compare to a 70 inch man – so what is it good for?

Working close

I often use the ST-E2 transmitter and keep the flash on TTL allowing me to control the contrast using Exposure compensation on the camera. In this way, you can see how I’ve blended the daylight balance in the room – the tunsten source in the background – and finally the softbox providing the ‘key’ or main illumination shaping the subject.

There aren’t any shadows though, because my baseline exposure is the light in the room. I’ve used the soft box to create a shaping highlight. So there’s a bright shaped area, and a darker flatter area.

In this shot an assistant was holding the light (as I can only shoot hand held – light to my left). Here again you can see how I have blended the ambient and bumped it up with the softbox. Using your light to see shapes is really the psychological core of ‘making light real’. Light gives you that power to sculpt and form.

To achieve this exposure with your camera in TTL auto flash as well as Aperture, Shutter Speed, or Program exposure mode.  Adjust your main exposure compensation value to -1EV.  That’s it – the flash exposure will correct for everything else – easy eh?

Upcoming later, I have a video clip titled the 3 minute portrait, that will show how I’m using the mini softbox.  So the question of size must come up at some point….and you have to know the right answer when you’ve found the right question.

Is the 18 inch softbox big enough?

NO – so (moments later) I switched to using the ceiling as my soft-box.

Size is relative to proximity (distance from the subject) and you want to always have a softbox as big as or larger than your subject.