Photography is all about the control of light. Unfortunately, most new photographers (and even seasoned pros) have a real hard time understanding how to control the light. In this article, I will walk you through some shoots that I’ve done and explain what I did to control the light to get the image and mood that needed to be portrayed. This article will be slightly different in that this isn’t necessarily “beginner friendly”. If there’s anything you don’t understand, let me know in the comments and I’ll do what I can to explain things.

Shooting under direct noon sun will give you “raccoon eyes” and other harsh, and generally, unwanted shadows. The light is directional, hard, and uneven. As a photographer, I hate direct noon sun. Especially true during summer! Overcast days will give you even, soft, and unidirectional light. You might think that I would love this kind of weather. You would be wrong, I don’t hate it but I don’t love it either. Pictures taken under overcast days will lack punch/pop without some help or assistance from Photoshop. You have to take control of the light, shape and mold it, throw and catch it. Let’s begin.

Here is one of the first pictures taken on a shoot with my friend, Janice Jann:

Janice Jann

This was taken around 2:40pm in direct sunlight and direct on-camera flash. Janice is pretty but you wouldn’t know that from this picture. Plus the background isn’t exactly pleasant to look at. Looking at the location, I decided to move the subject so that the sun was at her back. That did two things: 1) Eliminate the cluttered background and 2) Put her face in shade and using the sun as a rim light. Here is the result:

Janice Jann

It’s slightly better but still not quite there. I exposed for her face instead of the overall scene. The harsh sunlight is blowing out her shoulders and dress which draws attention away from the face. The location we were shooting at didn’t have much in terms of “solid” shade to work under so I had to create some. To do that, I had my assistant take the translucent reflector and hold it overhead. This softened the light and reduced the exposure value (EV) by about 1 ½ stops; assuming proper exposure for the face is 0EV. To get a proper exposure for the face, I had to adjust my shutter speed and/or aperture. The result of this change would cause the background to become even more blown out. Looking at the above picture, you’ll notice that the background has some strange shapes that might take the attention away when the EV changed. To avoid that I moved my position to get more of the background that was in shade:

Janice Jann

As you can see from this shot, the light had been softened and the blown highlights on the shoulders are gone. Technically speaking, I could – which I did in the final images – burn the straps on the dress because it is blown out and takes the attention away from the face and the hair. In this shoot, natural available light was the main source of light and I used the reflector to mold and shape the light to fit the situation. Didn’t do anything fancy just a reflector, on-camera direct flash, and the big shining ball in the sky.

The next image is of my newly acquainted friend, Debbie, shot indoors in a location with huge windows. I wanted total control of the lighting on this one, which means using flash. Here is the final image:

Debbie

I wanted the light to drop off quickly at the edges of the image. Normally, I would have chosen to use my softbox but I forgot to bring it… The reason a softbox would be ideal for this is that softboxes give you greater control over the drop off of light. Since I didn’t have one with me, I had to use my shoot through umbrella and 580exII (might have been a 430exII) triggered by a Pocket Wizard Plus II (PW from now on). I did a few things to get the light to drop off quickly. First, I positioned the light slightly above her and moved it in as close as possible. The natural curve of the umbrella helped to create a kind of spotlight effect. Next, I used a fast shutter speed (1/125th second if memory serves) and small aperture (don’t remember if it was f/5.6 or 8) to kill the ambient light. All that remained was to set the flash to the proper power level for a good exposure.

On photo shoots, I prefer to have the flashes on manual control. That ensures that I get consistent power output from the flashes every single time and gives me full control. E-TTL, iTTL, and the other technologies are great when you’re moving fast. And with modern cameras, you can control the flashes directly from the camera’s menu system which is all great and dandy. But you won’t get consistent exposure from frame to frame. Especially true if you’re moving around, the background could change greatly when working outdoors or even indoors. And unless you have the newest versions of the PWs, and most any radio trigger, you’ll have no choice but to use manual.

Next up is an image of another friend, Johnny Yang. He needed some “tough guy” shots and some “emo guy” shots. This is one of the emo shoots we did:

Johnny Yang

This shot was pretty simple lighting wise. Killed the ambient light and used two flashes: a Norman 400 studio flash and a 580exII speedlight. The speedlight is on the light stand that is visible in the frame, positioned high, aimed down to the subject, and zoomed to 50mm with no diffusion. The Norman is positioned to camera right with the standard reflector, positioned just above Johnny’s head with no diffusion. To create a greater sense of loneliness, I shifted the camera’s WB to Tungsten which caused the neutral balanced flashes to appear bluish. You can do this in post processing but I’m lazy and absolutely hate processing. So I try to do everything in camera which makes me a better photographer in the long run. The light is both edgy, cold, and “unstable”, exactly the mood I wanted to create.

Finally, the last image for this post is of model Angela. For this image, I wanted to recreate afternoon window light. At the time of this shot, it was already 6pm and the sun was pretty non-existent in the room we were shooting in. Here is the image:

Angela

To recreate soft window light, I took two shoot through umbrellas on light stands each powered by a Canon speedlight. The reason for using two is because the window is pretty big and to recreate realistic window light I needed to match the size of the window as close as possible. I used 580exII to command the two flashes which my assistants positioned outside and as close to the window as possible. The flashes were on manual power as usual but triggered through E-TTLII. Had the model turn away from the window so that the light is coming in from camera left. Then all I had to do was adjusted the flash power through the commander flash until I got a good exposure. Simple setup, simple light.

Hope this has been informative for you. If you have questions, fire away in the comments.

Till next time…