How would I light something like this?

JustJazzie · Oct 10, 2014

Im having trouble replicating this lighting setup. Any ideas how this was accomplished?

http://www.michaelkormos.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/maternity_silhouette.jpg

Derrel · Oct 10, 2014

Three lights. here is how it could/would be lighted with Speedotron flash gear:
One 7 inch reflector with a 30 degree grid aimed at the background, placed right behind her standing position and at about the height of her mid-body, and aimed directly at the seamless paper, with the barn doors set to give the slightly angled in-camera gradient fall off to black/almost-black right in the studio.

Her profile? A standard 11.5 inch 50-degree reflector with a 40 degree grid, + two mylar clip-on diffusers,and barn doors. I say barn doors because of the way her two EYELIDS are lighted, and how the eyelid closest to the camera is the ONLY area lighted by the main light; see how her closest eyebrow is NOT lighted by the main light? That is the clue to tell you where the main light was placed. The light is behind her, and it is a narrow, and well-controlled strip of light that is tall, and skinny, so to speak. A strip light could be used, but an 11.5 inch 50-degree reflector + a honeycomb grid AND a barn door (two-way) allows you to aim the light, and tailor it very easily, much more so than a strip light which is relatively a "one- or two-trick pony" kind of lighting tool.

Her hair is lighted from above with a standard reflector with grid + diffuser + barn doors. The hair is lighted with a very narrow beam-spread device, but it is also fairly "soft light", and the light looks pretty diffused. Again...grid + mylar diffusers at low, low Watt-seconds, like 1/8 the power of the main light.

Compare and contrast the main light's effect on her forehead, focusing on the small area located right above the nose, with the soft, diffused nature of the hair light. You can see that the main light is "behind" her and off to the side, which is one thing that makes it "hot"; the angle the main light grazes her from makes it "hot". The main light is behind her at around 11 o'clock. Look at her NECK: see where the main light hits, and where it does NOT hit?

hamlet · Oct 10, 2014

To me it looks like it is lit from her front, her right hand and to her back from above.

Light Guru · Oct 10, 2014

A light from behind the subject and and slightly to the right that is kinda low to the ground and then a second light to the right of the camera and aimed a bit downward.

Designer · Oct 10, 2014

JustJazzie said:
Im having trouble replicating this lighting setup. Any ideas how this was accomplished?

After you read Derrel's post, do the setup exactly as he has described. You may have to make small adjustments (just inches) to get it just right.

JustJazzie · Oct 10, 2014

Derrel, as always your knowledge amazes me! Unfortunetly, I don't have three sets of hard doors. (I counted three in that description right) I'll have to play with the gear I do have and see what I can come up with. I do have one barn door, and 4 grids. Any idea which light should ultimately have the one barn door I've got??

EDIT: I realize now what a stupid question this is. I think I got it! Gonna go give it a shot

CameraClicker · Oct 10, 2014

I think Derrel is right about 3 lights, and using specific reflectors and barn doors is also reasonable. There's probably several ways to get the effect, and how you do it depends on what you have available. You can probably get close with grids and light placement.

Put a grid on the background, aimed right at the background. If you have rectangular grids and round ones, use a rectangular one on the background, vertical long side. Light her from camera left, behind her so the light just spills past her centre line. The light that goes past her, disappears if it doesn't reflect, but that's a challenge in a small room with reflective walls. Third light up high on camera right, the grid has to keep the light off part of her hair, but does shine on her lower back. Playing with the grid angles (assuming they are adjustable) and light position and power should get you pretty close.

Derrel · Oct 10, 2014

There is more than one way to arrive at any lighting result, but the way I described it above is how I would light it, with the equipment I actually own and am familiar with using, to get the exact types of beam spreads, and nature of the light.

ALTERNATE SCENARIO: Okay, say the main light option you have is a softbox: tape some black-out paper to it so the light that comes out is only down the center of the softbox, or tape some aluminum foil to it, to make a tall, narrow "strip light" that will project a tall, skinny beam.

Background light? Aim a speedlight at 1/8 power at a black background. Experiment so that you get a soft-ish sort of beam spread; The key is NOT to allow the light to rake across the background, but rather to have it impact the background more or less at right angles; maybe make a tinfoil snoot, and on the front of the flash, tape a piece of thick,clear plastic that has some messy, irregular blobs of duct tape on it, so the light that is projected is irregular. Think of the plastic bubble wrap that say, a pair of scissors comes in from Target, I mean that THICK and reallly tough stuff.

Hair light is very soft, and controlled. You could probably bounce a very weak, snooted light off the ceiling right above her, just out of camera range, and get a somewhat similar hair light. I do not know exactly what modifiers you have or what kind of light-shaping tools you have available to you. In B&W, you could probably use a continuous light as the hairlight, and shoot at whatever shutter speed needed to get the right brightness on the hair light. SAME goes for the background light as well; it could be lighted with...a desk lamp as long as the shutter speed is low enough to "burn in" the background light to the correct degree.

The shot you showed has very controlled lighting; that's where grids and diffusers and snoots and barn doors, used singly or together or in three-piece combinations mean being able to get things just so, without light blasting all over hell. The shot is not "just an umbrella lighting" kind of shot. It has a very narrow main light spread, a very small, soft hairlight, and the background has very little light on it.

JustJazzie · Oct 10, 2014

Thanks for all the help guys! I played around with this for a bit tonight. I think I got a good starting point for the main lights. Since I dont have seamless paper, the background light seemed to do more harm than good. I will probably just omit it for my shoot on tuesday, I think.