Studio photography : Improvising on lighting setups

Declan in the studio. This kid, only 8 years old, brought the suaveness and confidence of James Bond to the photo session. It was quite a treat to work with someone so young, but who had specific ideas of how he wanted to present himself, to the extent that this was somewhat of a collaboration.

camera : Sony A1 (Amazon / B&H)
lens : Sony 24-70mm f/2.8 GM ii  (B&H / Amazon)
lighting: lots of Profoto gear of course. See the description below for the setup.

This final image is the pull-back shot to show the lighting … and you may well ask what is happening there. The lighting setup started as an idea picked up from somewhere else — I can’t remember where. But in applying it, I wanted to change some things, and add more lights, and change the position and power of the lights until the result was something I liked. In that sense the lighting setup is somewhat of a Frankenstein setup.

The main light (camera right) is a Profoto D2 flash (B&H / Amazon) in a Profoto 5-ft RFi Octa Softbox (B&H / Amazon) … but it is turned nearly 90 degrees to my subject so that it is feathered and the light kinda skims across his face. But doing that makes for contrasty light, even with the white V-flat directly across from that.

So I added the Profoto RFi 1’×6’ stripbox  (B&H / Amazon) (without a grid) directly behind me, to add various levels of fill-light, adjusted to taste during the shoot.

Peeking out behind the V-flat is a gridded Profoto 1’x4’ strip-box (B&H / Amazon) to add a bit of side-light / hair light. But gentle.

The final result is something I really like — more nuanced than just using a 5-ft octabox at 30 degrees like you might for a headshot. And that I think that journey in lighting – playing and adjusting and experimenting – is more valuable than a strict “paint-by-numbers” approach in using the ideas found in tutorials.

Related articles

• Profoto: How to use gridded strip boxes as the main light
• Studio portraits – different setups for different looks
• Dramatic portrait & headshot lighting in the studio