Photography & Lighting setups
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This is a portrait I did for a Swedish publishing house of a famous singer in my studio, using only one Profoto D1 250 Air and a Profoto Magnum reflector. And a silver reflector below her face to throw some light back up into the shadows and to add a little more sparkle in her eyes.
This is in my opinion the easiest way of doing a studio portrait with only one light, add a reflector below if you feel that a little reflected fill light might improve it. Silver if you want more fill and contrast, white if you just want diffused light.
You can use it in the studio or on location, the only thing you need is a studio light (or speedlight), a softbox and a boom stand. Adjust the light on the model and/or background by moving the light/model if you want different looking photos. In this case, I shot against a white paper background which turned out light grey.
This is just a closer headshot from the beauty portrait post I wrote about earlier. The setup is the same, I just moved a little closer to the model (or former model to be correct, she now works at an ad agency.
You can find the lighting diagram together with everything else here:
2-light beauty portrait setup
Shot on medium grey background paper, using two Profoto lights, one with a white Softlight reflector on a boom stand (the top catchlight), and the other in a 5 foot Softbox Octa behind me (the smaller catchlight below). And a reflector below.
Developed in Lightroom 3 and retouch was made in Photoshop, mostly skin retouch and some minor contrast adjustments.
Usually I take portraits of people with no or very little experience in front of the camera, the times I have a “real” model in the studio are easily counted. Very very.
This time I was asked to photograph a woman with a lot of experience in modeling in her earlier career as a model, now she works at an ad agency. She and her business partner wanted promotional photos and came to my studio for some portraits and group shots.
Setting the lights and doing headshots in the studio is easy compared to a group shot, there are so many more variables that you have to account for, not to mention the number of eyes that has to be open at the same time. And everything else.
I don’t do group shots that often, but this time there were three Swedish comedians that needed a couple of publicity photos for their new show. Who can say no to a comedian? Or three?
Instead of trying some complex lighting I took the easy way and kept it as simple as possible. One main light straight on from above and a little fill from below, all on the same axis as the camera.
