ASSIGNMENT 7:  MIXING STROBE AND TUNGSTEN

Lighting set-up for portrait one below, showing tungsten and strobe separately.

Portrait One:  Tungsten (Background) and Strobe (Subject)

Lighting set-up for portrait two below, using tungsten on subject and strobe on background.

ASSIGNMENT 6:   LARGE LIGHT SOURCE/SMALL LIGHT SOURCE

Take two portraits of a person, one using the 21" beauty dish and the other with the octabank and get the same results by using the placement of the subject, the light and the background.  

(Note:  We did this assignment as a team:  Joey, Jean, Flore-A, Barry)

Since the octabank is much larger than the beauty dish, the way to achieve the same lighting effect is for the large light to be further back and in the same line as the smaller light.  From the subject's position, the lights should appear the same size.

In the two shots below, the light was to the side at about 160° and very close to the subject (beauty dish was just a few inches from the subjects face).  The backdrop was immediately behind the subject for the beauty dish shot and about 4 ft behind the subject for the octabank shot.

For the set of images below, the lights were also off to the side but at a greater angle to the subject and further back.  The Backdrop was immediately behind the subject for the beauty dish shot and about 4 ft behind the subject for the octabank shot.  Lighting on subject and tonality of background match, but given distance of respective lights and background, we could not eliminate while maintaining lighting constant with the two different set-ups. 

Assignment 5:  One Strobe Light Source

Portrait 1:  Using one strobe, light a person against a white background so that their face has a highlight and a shadow side.  The background should appear darker on the highlight side and lighter on the shadow side.

Using a small soft box (ProPhoto Acute 2 2400 strobe) to the side of the subject and feathered on vertical axis to create gradient shadow effect on white backdrop.  Subject close to camera and approx 6-8 ft from backdrop.

Portrait 2:  Using one strobe, light a person against a white background so that their face is evenly lit and the background is black.

Using a small soft box (ProPhoto Acute 2 2400 strobe) directly above the camera straight on to subject and feathered on horizontal axis to ensure no spill onto white backdrop rendering it black.  Soft box almost parallel to the floor.  Subject close to camera and approx 20ft from backdrop.

Assignment 4:  Three Light Sources 

Portrait 1:

Portrait using classic Rembrandt lights (key at 45 to side, 45 up).  All regular tungsten light bulbs --  key light (150w), fill (75w) and backlight (spotlight bulb or 75w).  Images color-corrected for white balance in post.

Portrait 2:

Portrait using 3 light formula.  Same lights as above, but used differently.  Idea was to build on Portrait B from Assignment 3 (one light source at 180° to subject illuminating only half the face).  By using a fill light and a hair light I had intended to open up the shadow side of the face to reveal a little detail and to separate the back of the head from the background).   The resulting image below give strange hair highlights and red ears.

I moved the hair light from directly behind Jean's head to the side to create the lighting effect below, which solved the problem above.  The compromise was that I did not end up with the split of light and dark down the middle of the face and ended up with a more asymmetrical lighting effect than I had intended.