The LIGHT Side Digest Light and Lighting For photographers
November 2014, Issue 1
Creative Studio Backgrounds Gridding a Beauty Dish
Setting up Off-Camera Flash and Previsualisation
Welcome to our Inaugural issue!
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WELCOME!
Ian Pack
The LIGHT Side started from humble beginnings in June 2013 to a membership of around 2500 in 17 months. During that time we have seen some stunning images contributed by a wide range of photographers from around the world. It’s a shame when such great images are lost to the depths of the Facebook Timeline never to re-emerge! Peter Barnett suggested not 2 months ago that we needed some form of permanent digest to preserve some of the juicy bits from The LIGHT Side and this is it! A small team of willing volunteers has worked tirelessly to bring you this inaugural edition. The LIGHT Side has seen a number of photographers grow in ability and confidence to the extent they now openly contribute and comment. There are also some well known names from the business of photography who share their images including photographers published in Forbes, National Geographic, Radio Times and national dailies. You may also see contributors offering training in person, rather than online. These are great opportunities to really learn about lighting from those with a heap of knowledge and experience. Plus you get the opportunity to work with and meet other photographers. Watch out for local meetups with other members of The LIGHT Side, we’ve already gathered a number of times with likeminded photographers in Sussex, England. Now we’re looking for people to coordinate group meetings on regular or adhoc basis - volunteers needed!
Ian trained in TV and started his photography business in the early 1990s. He’s worked with local, national and international businesses, has a widely read blog and in 2013 founded the Facebook group. Ian has been published in Amateur Photographer, PhotoPlus, What Digital Camera? and Digital Camera magazines. www.thelightsidegroup.co.uk
Chris Cook (aka Isca Home) Professional photographer since 1972 – Studied lighting under Walter Nurnberg. Professionally qualified & taught in 26 countries. Scientific Wedding & Artistic winner of multiple awards inc Fuji Wedding photographer of the year since 1980’s. cookphoto.webs.com
Peter Williams Peter is a 28 year old serving soldier and working photographer. Working mainly in a photojournalistic role his work differs greatly on a daily basis and this variation has taken him all over the world and into a multitude of challenging, kinetic and fast flowing environments. Father of two, whisky lover, passionate photographer; a combination he adores. PeteWilliamsPhotography
Peter Barnett Mechanical design engineer by day, photographer at heart with an interest in landscapes, portraiture and starry skyscapes. You will find me up at the crack of dawn photographing the unspoilt wilderness, or chucking water at inanimate objects to capture the movement of the splashes and droplets. www.yorkwaypictures.co.uk
So now it’s now time to step from the shadows and see what this first issue of The LIGHT Side Digest has to offer. If you are interested in submitting specifically for the digest or advertising or have ideas on what else you would like to see please contact us. With all good wishes from the production team, Ian Pack, Isca Home, Peter Barnett, Simon Newbury & Peter Williams. 3
Simon Newbury Portrait Artist, House-Husband, Builder of Homes and all round Jack-of-all-trades. Husband to an amazing wife and father to two beautiful, delightful pains in the arse. A dab hand at Photoshop and not too shabby behind a camera either. www.simonsart.co.uk
Contents 5.
Mounting a Speedlight
8. Offer from IANIRO
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11. Using a gridded beauty dish
13. Creative Studio
backgrounds
15. Lighting Science by Rick Friedman
18. Location Flash
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and Previsualisation
24. Ave Events Diary
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18 4
How do I attach my Speedlight to a Lightstand? By Peter Williams
This was the question asked by Richard Jebus Berry - “I am looking for the best way to attach my speedlight to a light stand. I have 1 skyport transmitter/receiver for my camera and assuming I need a second one for my speedlight, what is the best way to attach everything to the light stand?” The answer? Grip gear questions almost always spur a lot of interest with a huge and varied list of options and solutions. Grip gear is sets/lighting/props, basically anything that isn’t the camera or subject. Often grip gear and methods of mounting lights is forgotten, pushed to the wayside and overshadowed by the light itself. Sometimes, just as much creativity and thought is required to mount the light as with the actual use of the light. Here, we will discuss two simple and effective methods of mounting a speedlight on a light stand and how to trigger those speedlights using either the Skyport or Yong Nuo trigger system.
Mounting Method 1: Umbrella swivel bracket and Frio Cold Shoe There are several Umbrella Swivel Brackets out there and many will do a fantastic job. There are a few things to bare in mind when you are purchasing a bracket, durability and droop. Durability speaks for itself, but droop occurs when
the support system is over loaded and the bracket begins to droop, lowering your light. The Kupo Grip KS-101 Umbrella Swivel Bracket has a larger grip area meaning that it can withstand loads up to and probably exceeding a 7’ parabolic umbrella without droop becoming an issue. If you are using the Kupo Bracket you will also need a 1/4” 20 TPI threaded spigot. Once you have purchased a bracket and ¼” 20 TPI threaded spigot, you need a way of attaching the speedlight to the bracket. This comes in the form of a “cold shoe”. A cold shoe is just like the hot shoe you find on top of your camera, but it has no current running through it, hence… “cold”. There are several variants on the market, but the Frio Cold Shoe is a must. It is light and offers a level of durability that will mount your speedlight securely, but also break should it be struck hard enough. This protects the speedlight. Now to put it all together. Place the Bracket on top of your lightstand, once this is secure and locked off you need to insert the threaded spigot. You can now connect the Frio Cold Shoe. Slot the speedlight into the cold shoe and now mount your softbox or umbrella as you see fit.
Mounting Method 2: 1420 VAL Spigot and Frio Cold Shoe The 1420 VAL Spigot is an incredibly versatile piece of kit and in this case it will allow you to mount a speedlight on a light stand if used with a Frio Cold Shoe.
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The 1420 VAL Spigot comprises of a standard 16mm 5/8” Spigot and a 1/4” 20 TPI thread which will allow you to mount a light source on anything that will fit its inline and traverse 3/4” holes. Here, we will seat it on your light stand in either the inline or traverse position, once a Frio Cold Shoe has been secured to the thread, you are free to mount your speedlight. In this instance, you are unable to use an umbrella.
Triggering Method: Elincrom Skyport There are many ways to trigger your speedlight using a sync cable. pocket Wizards are probably the most universally used but here we use the Skyport trigger system from Elincrom. You will need a Universal Skyport, pictured on previous page, which will enable you to trigger your speedlight from your hotshoe. Before purchasing the Universal Skyport trigger for your speedlight you need to check that it has a sync port - the circular socket shown on the side of the flash - without it you will have no way to connect the trigger to your speedlight. If you ring The Flash Centre they will be able to provide you with the appropriate sync cable for your speed light. Once you have the receiver and the appropriate sync cable they slot together in self-explanatory manner. Now all you need to do is check that the receiver and trigger are on the same channels… and shoot away! There are of course other ways to trigger OCF, but they will be in a future issue...
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lighting kit offer As was mentioned previously in this piece, Ianiro offer some fantastic grip and support gear. Ianiro also happen to be a fantastic group of people. So fantastic in fact… they have put an offer together for TLS members, and in my opinion… one to be snapped up if you are inspired (or even if you weren’t!) after reading this article. The reason I am recommending them, is because I have every piece of kit on that list… and I didn’t buy it through an offer, I wish I had!
Whats in the kit? Handy Stand – Also known as a Nano Stand. Compact when folded (49cm), weighs 1.1kg and extends to 2.27m. I have two… and they go everywhere with me. Umbrella Swivel Bracket – As mentioned above, incredibly versatile and robust, a must have piece of kit. It allows you to use brollies with a shaft diameter of up to 8mm and it also has large friction locks which allow the use of larger brollies and modifiers without experiencing the dreaded “droop”. Hot shoe adapter – This is a metal variant of a cold shoe. It fits directly to the thread on the end of the 055 Handy Stand or to the Umbrella Swivel Bracket with the aid of a Universal 5/8” Stud. Camera Flash Clamp – This allows you to position your flash where and when it’s inconvenient with a lighting stand. These can be used on the end of a lightweight 5/8” boom or even with the help of a 1420 VAL Spigot on the end of a painters extension pole. Universal 5/8” Stud - You can never have too many of these which is why there are two included in this deal! 8
The kits Off Camera Flash Essentials Kit 1 1 x 055 Handy Stand 1 x KS-101 Umbrella Bracket 1 x KS-039 Hot Shoe Adaptor 1 x KCP-390 Camera Flash Clamp 2 x KS-003 5/8” Snap in Pin or KS-017 Universal 5/8” Stud Total Price £88.20 Off Camera Flash Essentials Kit 2 2 x 055 Handy Stand 1 x KS-101 Umbrella Bracket 1 x KS-039 Hot Shoe Adaptor 1 x KCP-390 Camera Flash Clamp 2 x KS-003 5/8” Snap in Pin or KS-017 Universal 5/8” Stud Total Price £120.60 All prices are ex VAT, Shipping per package for next day delivery (except Sat and Sun) £9.00 To place your order either contact the Ianiro office to order by phone or email sales@ ianirouk.com and someone will call you back. Payment can be made by debit or credit cards (except Am Ex) or Ianiro can provide bank details for BACS transfers.
When ordering be sure to mention OFFER CODE TLS/01 Product Links: Frio Cold shoe 1420 VAL Spigot Kupo Grip KS-101 Umbrella Swivel Bracket Skyport trigger Skyport universal 9
Using a
Gridded Beauty Dish By Peter Barnett
Photographer: Sleepy Robot-Photography Model: Laura Flora Harding Makeup: Velvet Rose Ebliu Š Copyright Sleep Robot-Photography
This beautiful head portrait was taken by Sleepy Robot Photography using a battery-powered strobe and octobox with the addition of a reflector to create a beauty dish effect. The light was two feet left of the model and two feet above which gives a 45° angle from the light source to the model. Notice how soft the light is on her left cheek and how the light tails off softly on her right cheek. The grid narrows the light, which allows the photographer to focus the beam to an exact spot and tails the light off to the area which you don’t want the eye of the viewer to follow. For this example the grid focused the light on to the model’s face and kept the light spilling on to the background and the rest of the model’s body. With a model sometimes it’s hard to maintain continuous shooting due to having to move the light to the new position of the model’s face. To overcome this problem a VAL spigot was used.
Beauty dish without grid
As you can see from the images on the right the light is focused rather than spread evenly across the wall, see how the edge is feathered. Beauty dish with grid fitted
This example shows the beauty dish in a studio environment there are other variants of this, some even for your offcamera flash as you can see here at the following link: Beauty dish with a grid for off camera flash
The front of the Beauty dish with grid
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DIY Studio Backdrop
By Peter Barnett
This beautiful shot comes from Xtraordinary Photography Studio. They built the set from scratch and styled it to suit and this is how they did it. An overhead soft box provided the main
light with a beauty dish to the front as fill. Taken at F11 / 1/100s / ISO 100. Chris Ord of Xtraordinary said “So it started with a concept of a shoot I had with Beyonce shooting for Vogue and an
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idea for a background that I had seen where Brett Harkness created a backdrop in his home studio and I wanted to pair two of them together....I knew the exact model who could pull off this look and a great creative team to bring it together. “I started by constructing a frame out of 3 x 2 inch CLS timber mounted on the back of some half inch MDF sheets to give it some rigidity. I filled all of the holes and gave it a coat of primer I had spare so that the ‘cement’ could key to it. I used rapid-set tile adhesive as the ‘cement’ and boy was it rapid!
“I literally got one side of the panel done and the adhesive starting setting in the tub I had mixed it in, so it was a tough task to get it on the second wall and spread it fairly evenly. I used some spare flooring from the kitchen and bathroom to give the area a base.” And there you have it, one fantastic backdrop which can be used time and again.
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Lighting Science by
Rick Friedman 15
On a recent assignment I had the honor to photograph Professor Stephen Lippard, an American bioinorganic chemist and the Arthur Amos Noyes Professor of Chemistry at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and 2014 winner of the Priestley Medal. I had about 2 hours, including any set ups, to create a magazine cover, large lead photograph and photographs of him in his environment. On my way to meet the professor at his office on MIT campus, I came across a large glass block periodic table on the wall at the elevator hall in his building. After meeting the professor and photographing him in his office , I asked him to come down to the lobby to be photographed with the periodic table for the cover shot. To light the professor, I used a Dynalite Uni, a 400WS monolight with small Chimera soft box as the main light, with black formcore as gobo to prevent the white light from spilling on to the background. In the back, I set up a Dynalite Roadmax 800 power supply with 2 heads with Rosco blue gel on one side and and Rosco yellow gels on the other
side. I placed a Nikon SB-900 strobe with Rosco red gel on the floor shooting up at the periodic table. All the strobes were fired with Pocket Wizard Plus III’s. I placed the reflector on the same light stand as the boom holding the model of a molecule, because there was so little space. The model of the molecule was hung from the boom with fishing line. The other challenge was that the set up and shoot had to be completed in 45 minutes. This photographs was shot with Nikon D800 and 24-70, F2.8 Nikon lens. This is a photograph of the set up and how it look like without the light on. For this assignment, as is the case with most of my assignments, I was not given any art direction and there was no location scouting time before the shoot. My job was to come in, quickly asses my environment, create a photographs that magazine would love.
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flashfreeportait.com guerrillaglamour.com
Pre-visualisation for Location Flash By Peter Williams
Tony Hanners asked in The Light Side Group: “Hi guys, I’ve been asked to photograph a mountain rescue scene with the local team. The scenario is that they are rescuing a mountain biker in woods in the dead of night so there will be no ambient. I have four speedlites and various umbrellas and softbox’s a few head lights worn by the rescuers and maybe the lights from vehicles. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated to give me some help in the direction I will take this as I want to shoot with as low as possible with the ISO. Thanks in advance” best time for this sort of image would be just after dusk instead of the dead of night. Then you would still have detail in the sky and you could manipulate its intensity with the shutter or by using ND filters. It’s easier to lessen the ambient than to add it. At this time I will mention that as the photographer you Enter… pre-visualisation (previs). need to dictate to the client your needs and expectations. Include this in the contract they sign, explaining that if their Before the lighting is even considered, you need to have a clear idea of what the expectations are not met due to their final image will look like. When will the ignorance of your advice as the subject image be taken? Where will it be taken? matter expert, you are not accountable. If you aren’t under cover, then maybe the The Answer? Lighting a scene such as the above can be a tricky and daunting situation, especially for someone with limited lighting knowledge and experience. It’s a complex environment and it requires careful consideration and planning.
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Now you are into the planning stage a rough image should be sketched, or if you are stuck to a tight brief, for whatever reason, you need a placement sketch from the client. Once you have this information you can work out where the illumination and shadows need to fall and how the lights need to be manipulated to achieve what it is you are after. There’s a fine line when lighting something like this, the scene needs to be lit, but you don’t want it to look unnaturally lit. Add considered lighting and add it with purpose, don’t just flood the scene. Think about contrast and how the light would look to you through your eyes, not a viewfinder. Now you know how you want the image to be perceived, you can start to think about what sort of lights you require and then the light placement. If budget allows, either purchasing or renting portable battery flash is the best option. Although, it could also be lit with perfectly well with speedlights. From a modification point of view, since most of the ambient lights will be small, harsh, directional lights, the only modifiers that should be required will be flags and gels, bar a box to diffuse the light for the moonlight if you wish to wash the scene.
Now you are at this stage of the process you need to control your lighting process. Treat it with as much, if not more, care as you do your workflow post shoot. Light the scene constructively and in blocks. Turning one light on at a time, ensure that the light is doing exactly what you want it to do, turn it off and move to the next. This is a much easier way of lighting (in any situation, not just a complex situation like this). Once you are happy they are all doing what you want, you can turn them on in pairs or more to check contrast and balance.
Both simulating moonlight as a wash When planning the light placement, and directional moonlight fall in to the consideration needs to be given to the category of ‘shooting day for night’. Blue environment. You do not want it to be is usually associated with nightime, so totally black, but you do want it to look we can record the ambient light as blue like night. Your best friend in this instance by setting the cameras white balance would be the moon. It would be a great to tungsten and then using a full Colour source to simulate either as a wash to Temperature Orange (CTO) gel on the the entire scene, or something more light sources. Once you have the right directional. 19
balance, it is just a case of moving the light and modifying it to get the effect you are looking for. Be it directional, speckled through trees by using a cookaloris/cookie (which is when you place a piece of material with shapes cut into it between the light source and the subject, this projects the shape you have cut) or a wash of the entire scene. The next thing to consider is how much of a part are the teams ambient lights are going to play in the final image, i.e. the head torches and the headlights of their vehicles. Are they bright enough to be exposed for or will you need to supplement them with gelled, directional light? The key here is emitting the same colour, direction and shape of light whilst adding it in a realistic and believable intensity. This is just a matter of trial and error until you are happy with what you see. Remember the ‘lego brick’ method of construction. Don’t try and do it all at once! Flagging and feathering are vitally important here. It is how you will control the light spill and manipulate the light to create as believable a fall of light as possible. Flagging is the process in which you use objects, be them already in the scene or objects added by you, to stop the light from falling onto areas you wish to remain un affected by the light. In this instance, you will have limited space, so huge foam core boards will be of no use to you. Modelling foam and snoots are what you will need to use. Feathering is the second skill you will need to play with during the shoot.
Feathering is when you rotate the light away from the subject, essentially reducing the size of the light source and the ratio in which it corresponds to the subject. This will enable you to control both spill and contrast. Now you have the basic understanding of the process, the only thing to do is put it into practice. Granted, there is much more to say about everything described in this article, but a more indepth look at the individual aspects will no doubt be covered in a later article, as and when the right question pops up! Here is what Tony had to say after his shoot: “The info [found within the post] was incredibly useful without which I wouldn’t have attempted this shot. I was limited to three speedlites and one search light from the Rescue team I was shooting. The shot took place at 10:30pm despite my saying that it needs to be shot in daylight/ twilight. The team loved the image and used it for their calendar, I’m not so happy with it as I wanted more light for the background and I had to use a high ISO, because of this the image is way too noisy. I love TLS it’s such a great source of info that everybody is really happy to give, a rare thing amongst photographers these days, I’ve only been doing OCF for just over a year and don’t do enough as I stuggle to find ‘victims’.”
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And here is his final image. “The lighting I chose was a speedlite in a tree four feet behind subject (camera left) at a 45 degree angle and roughly 8 feet high with a blue gel and used as a kicker, it was set to quarter power and just gave off enough light to be moonlight. I placed another speedlight (camera right) at 1/16th power two feet behind subject and this separated them from the pitch black background giving a nice rim. The main light was one of their LED search lights which I placed a scrim in front of to diffuse it this was about five feet from subject camera right. I used the MR’s head torches as Incidental light just to fill little pockets.”
Tony shot the image for the Calder Valley Search & Rescue Team for use in their 2015 Calendar. All proceeds from the sale of the Calendars will go direct to the team and their aim is to raise £5000 to help replace one of their ageing emergency response vehicles. Its on sale now: http://www.cvsrt.org.uk/Calendar-2015/ And if you would like to see more of what Tony gets up to, please visit his website: http://www.hanrahanphotography.co.uk/ 21
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The LIGHT Side Digest Free Monthly Inspiration & Learning for Lighting Photographers The LIGHT Side is a closed Facebook group where photographers of all skill levelsl and experience contribute images, comment, help and inspire others. Much of the good material is lost in the Facebook timeline so an intrepid group of photographers have created The LIGHT Side Digest to bring you the best of The LIGHT Side.
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A guide to some of the great exhibitions and events happening in the next few months. If you would like to put an event or exhibition forward for the next issue please contact TLS admin. Compiled by Chris Cook & Ian Pack Please contact the venue or exhibition organiser before making travel plans!
What
Where
Horst Fashion photographer V&A London of style http://www.vam.ac.uk/ content/exhibitions/exhibition-horst-photographer-of-style/ Erica Scourti The photographers gallery So Like You http://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/erica-scourti-solike-you Wildlife photographer of the National History Museum year http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/wpy/visit/index.html
From
To
6th Sept 2014
4th Jan 2015
4 Oct 2014 3 Dec 2014
Now
30th Aug 2015
Taylor Wessing Photographic http://www.npg.org.uk/pho- 13 22 February Portrait Prize toprize1/site14/index.php November 2015 2014 Conflict, Time, Photography Tate Modern
15 March 2015
Guy Bourdin: Image Maker
26 November 2014 http://www.somersethouse. 27 org.uk/visual-arts/guy-bour- November din 2014
15 March 2015
Moma 13 http://www.moma.org/visit/ December calendar/exhibitions/1496 2014
26 April 2015
The UK’s largest ever exhibition of the influential and enigmatic fashion photographer Guy Bourdin, featuring over 100 works and previously unseen material from the photographer’s estate, from 1955 to 1987. Modern Photographs from the Thomas Walther Collection, 1909–1949
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Masters of Light at the Media Space in The Science Museum. Treasures from the world’s oldest surviving photographic society are to go on display inSouth Kensington, the site of one of the UK’s first ever public exhibitions of photography.
Science Museum 2nd Dec http://www.sciencemuse2014 um.org.uk/about_us/press_ and_media/press_releases/2014/07/masters_of_light. aspx
Annie Leibovitz 2015 exhibition
Dimbola House Isle of Wight – 200th anniversary of Julia Margaret Cameron
The National Media Museum, http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/PlanAVisBradford it/WhatsOn.aspx Plenty to interest many. Strongly recommend visiting the website for more information Fox Talbot Museum at Lacock http://www.nationaltrust. org.uk/lacock/things-to-seeAbbey and-do/fox-talbot-museum/ Discover more at the birthplace of photography Royal Photographic Society Exhibitions
http://www.rps.org/exhibitions-and-competitions/current-exhibitions
Various exhibitions to visit Landscape Photographer of http://www.take-a-view. the Year 2014 co.uk A stunning collection of images of the British landscape. Dates to be announced so bookmark and monitor the website.
March 2015
2015