I haven’t used the snoot for portraits in a while, and when a publisher in Stockholm asked me to take some portraits of a writer, I thought it could be a good idea to include it. To create something a little different.

Using the snoot all by itself would maybe have been cool, but not that useful. Maybe if she wrote vintage mystery novels. So, I used it together with a much larger light source from the same direction, a 5 foot Profoto softbox Octa. As something between fill and key light.

Setup diagram for a snoot portrait

I started with the big light, and placed that about 5 feet (150 cm) from her head, a little underexposed. From the same direction, I added the snoot a little higher up, just around the upper edge of the big softbox.

The snoot is a combination of a Profoto Zoom Reflector, a grid holder and the snoot itself. I think I also used a grid inside, but can’t remember if I did (and don´t really know how much difference it makes in a portrait like this).

Both the snoot and the Octa are mounted on Profoto D1 250 Air monoblocs, and with the Profoto Air Remote, it was really simple to adjust the effect up and down until the ratio felt right.

In the detail picture to the right, the large catchlight is the Octa, and below is the reflection of the silver reflector. The tiny bright spot above is the snoot.

The most visible effect from the snoot is the shadows it creates under her nose and the shadow pattern her hair makes. But also inside her eye sockets, the shadow line is much more distinct than it would have been with just one large light source.

Octa + snoot + reflector

The Octa together with the snoot and a round silver reflector below creates something like a wall of light from one side, just with different contrasts and properties.

Without any special makeup and styling, I was very modest with the ratios of the lights, I think.

It was, after all, a portrait of a woman writing books, not something to sell lipstick. If I would try this kind of setup another time, I would try to make it a little bit more dramatic. But without professional makup, it is really easy to make her skin look bad and blown out.

Angle & position makes a lot of difference

During this photo session, we tried a lot of poses, or rather, different angles of her head and face. If we had used just one large light source as main/key light, a lot of shots would have been good and ready to use.

But, with such a specific lighting setup, it was rather the opposite. Most of the shots didn’t look good, lighting-wise. A little turn of her face and the cheekbones might be to prominent in the picture, or the nose would look bad. Et cetera.

ND-filter and background/hair light

Shooting on a black background often needs some sort of hair light or rim light, just to avoid to having parts of the head and/or body melt into the background. In this case I used a Profoto Compact 300 with a beauty dish, gridded, as hair light.

Two layers of ND-filter was needed to get the light output down to the same levels I had the D1’s on. Soon I will buy two more Profoto D1’s, just to have the simplicity of the Air system and not having to deal with ND-filters any more.

The idea of controlling everything from one remote is very easy to get used to, and climbing on ladders is not that fun, just for adjusting the power.

But, adding filter gels with tape on the outside of a reflector can have interesting effects. I was a bit sloppy when I taped the two layers onto the beauty dish, and when a little bit fell off, it opened up a little sliver of light which hit the background directly.

So, I got a strange pattern or light beam on the black background. It was nothing I had planned for, but I think it added something to the picture so I let it stay there.

For this portrait I used a Nikon D700 with the 85mm/1.4 lens (the old model, not G) and most of the adjustments were made in Lightroom with some final touches in Photoshop.

For publicity portraits, I try to keep the retouching down to a minimum, just to make it feel a little bit natural (given the circumstances, even if studio lights are really not that natural).

If there would be one problem with this kind of lighting (apart from the problems of posing and getting the angles right), it would be that the effect of the snoot on normal skin (without heavy makeup or retouch) makes it look very different in different parts of the picture.

Some parts, where the snoot is not shining so brightly, the skin can look a little bit dull and dark. But, overall, I like it anyway.

If you have any questions, have I missed anything? Please let me know.

Time For Print-photoshoots is nothing I have tried before, but it felt natural to try it after having worked with the model in the photo above several times working for a Swedish fashion designer shooting her collection.

I wanted to try a new lighting setup with focus on more lights reflected in her eyes and more light coming from behind her on both sides.

Studio Lighting Setup Diagram

This is what it looked like in the studio for the photo above. In some of the shots, I moved the beautydish and Octa softbox around and changed their effect and ratio to create different photos with roughly the same setup.

Here is a test photo with the rim/background lights turned off.

The main light in almost all the photos was a white Profoto Softlight Reflector (beautydish) without the grid. Fill comes from a large 5 foot (150 cm) softbox Octa. To keep the light bouncing off the walls I had one bookend on either side of her.

Behind the bookends, I mounted diffusion panels on light stands and placed two Profoto Compact near the background pointing slightly towards the model’s back. The angle kept the background from being completely blown out.

Next time I try this setup I will lower their effect a little. In some of the shots, the rim light areas had almost no detail. It would be a lot easier to lighten in post processing than trying to get the detail in the overexposed highlights back (if there is any left, that is).

Old and new equipment

With my new Profoto D1 250 Air it is easy to adjust the setting digitally via radio in very small increments, and when using them together with older Profoto Compacts it is something of a clash between small exact changes and adding another layer of ND-filter to bring down the effect to a good level.

Using the Profoto Air Remote is very convenient, but as long as I keep using Compacts in the mix, the photo studio of the future is not really here yet. Sooner or later I will upgrade all my lights to D1:s or something similar, but as for now it is very handy being able to add another light (they do cost money, and shooting TFP is not getting me any closer to more modern equipment).

Post Processing for this model portrait

The initial adjustments were made in Lightroom 3, the conversion to black and white as well. She wanted the portraits to be in black and white, so I never did any in colour. Maybe later if I find the time.

In Photoshop I did some basic retouch and fixed the skin, contrast and smaller details. But as I mostly work with ordinary people with no or little makeup, I tend to keep the skin retouch to a minimum. Or as natural I can.

Everything was done in layers and groups, with simple or more detailed masks. I find that workflow easy to reverse if the effect of a specific adjustment feels too strong. Just mask a bit more or lower the opacity on the layer or group that causes the image to feel wrong.

The best way to do a natural skin retouch without having to go into details is to go through every part of the photo, until it looks almost like a doll. After that, just lower the opacity until it feels like a human being again. If I have the time, I try to let the portrait rest a little and then go back to see if it still looks good.

It is extremely easy to get caught in a frenzy to fix everything so it looks perfect in 100%, pixel for pixel. Zooming out a lot helps getting rid of that.

A smart retouch trick

And finally, my favourite trick: in Photoshop, put all the layers and adjustments in one group (there can be groups within groups as well) and keep the original layer untouched in the bottom of the layers panel.

With just one click, you can show or hide all your adjustments. Very handy if you want an easy way to see if it still feels good or if something catches your eye as too much or just ugly.

Equipment used for this photo

Nikon D700
Nikkor 85mm/1.4
Manfrotto camera stand
2 x Profoto D1 250 Air
Profoto Air Remote
2 x Profoto Compact 300
Profoto Softlight Reflector (white beautydish)
Profoto 5 foot Softbox Octa
2 x Chimera panel with diffusion fabric
Several light stands
2 x Bookends
White background paper
Model
Photographer

If you have any questions on the lighting, workflow or retouch, don’t hesitate to write a comment and I will answer as good as I can.

Most of my portrait photography I do in my studio, but quite often the client wants me to pack up my equipment and set up a small studio at their office for a quick portrait session.

This time it was software company Adobe in Sweden that needed new portraits, I think they mostly will use them on blogs, intranet and in their image bank. Just ordinary half-length portraits that can be cropped to headshots if needed.

I brought some lights and set up a studio in their conference room.

Conference room photo studio setup

In my bags I had packed three lights, all Profoto Compacts, but ended up only using a 2-light setup. It was enough to get simple portraits that can be shoot again at a later time using the diagram above as a guide.

Sitting portraits is not my standard procedure, but sometimes it adds to the image (especially if you include the table and some of the backgrund) and works very well.

The image to the right is taken with a similar setup when a shoot portraits of jury members for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA).

In that session I used the almost white table as a reflector, but in the conference room at Adobe, their table was made of some sort of light wood and had a strong yellow colour that would have given the reflected light a tint that would be hard to compensate for in Photoshop. Almost like using a golden reflector I would guess, not at all what I wanted.

Reducing colour tint and adding light

So, I started with putting some sheets of large white paper on top of the conference table, between the model and the main light, to cover the brown/yellow surface. But, as I wanted a little more fill reflected I added a round silver reflector to get more fill light from below.

This is the portrait studio seen from camera right. To the left, I set up my Nikon D700 with a 85mm/1.4 lens just next to the table, and the models sat on a chair on the other side to the right in this picture.

The main light was a Profoto Compact 600R in a large 5 foot Profoto Softbox Octa (150 cm) angled down without the outer diffusion fabric.

Behind the model was a yellow (maybe closer to mustard) wall that I wanted to light separately, so I mounted a reflector on a frame to act as a flag for the main light, avoiding most of that light to hit the background behind the model.

I only brought a white/golden fabric for the reflector frame, so I turned the gold side towards the main light, not risking that the light from behind (background/rim) to reflect gold coloured light back at the wall.

Usually, I have a large black fabric folded in my equipment bag, but for some reason I forgot to include that this time. It’s very handy if you need to cover a window or quickly make a black flag using a light stand and a reflector holder, just don’t forget to pack it.

When I took a few test shots with my first model, the background light that would also serve as a rim light was placed a bit too close and created some flare (see image right).

That could have been easily fixed with just a black flag camera right, but as I just had one large frame with me, I moved the light a little bit and the flare was gone.

The background light (also rim light)

Instead of using two different lights for background light and rim light, I placed a Profoto Compact 300 near the corner of the room, using only a white shoot-through umbrella as light modifier.

Pointing away from the model, the falloff from the light hitting the background created a soft gradient on the wall, and the light reflected inside the umbrella bounced back and acted as a rim light on the model’s head.

As always, the effect of this type of rim light is a lot more visible when the model don’t have long (or big) hair getting in the way of the light aimed at the sides of the face.

But, it lights up the hair a bit and separates the model a little from the background, and that’s the point of it mostly.

It is of course easier to use two different lights for background and rim lighting, but working outside the studio I try to find ways to make my equipment bag less heavy, and reducing the numbers of lights and light stands is one way of doing just that. And you never know how much space you can use, this time the room was quite large, but sometimes you just don’t have room for more than two lights.

Switching to full length

When we were done shooting the portraits, the client also wanted some full-length shots, so I just moved the lights around for a simple 2-light setup with almost flat lighting. Nothing special, but hadn’t it been for the yellow wall, this photo would have been very boring I think.

The post-processing was easy, just some minor development in Lightroom and later fixing contrast and skin in Photoshop. I was a bit surprised that they, being Adobe and all, talked so little about fixing things later (making them prettier) in Photoshop.

I guess they take it for granted.

The Profoto Magnum is not one of my most used light modifiers, but every time I feel to give a portrait some extra contrast it never fails to produce great results. But, it is not for every face, at least not the way I used it when I shot some press images for a well-known Swedish author, Ulf Stark.

Ulf is very used to having his picture taken, and we met earlier a couple of years ago when I took a lot of portraits of authors and illustrators for a publishing house, his included.

Lighting setup diagram, Magnum portrait

This time I wanted to create a portrait that almost could have been from a Ingmar Bergman movie, almost. Black and white, a lot of contrast and a lot of hard shadows.

Using the Profoto Magnum all by itself would have been a bit too much, at least in a small photo studio with only a white background. I like a lot of contrast, but mostly I set up the lights for much softer portraits.

Most people don’t like to have deep shadows that really defines their facial structure. I have some examples of portraits that show a lot of wrinkles and shadows, here is one portrait with a beautydish, and another portrait with a gridded Magnum. But, they don’t happen too often.

Profoto Magnum and some fill light

My newest piece of equipment in the studio (and on location as well) is a Chimera frame, almost 2 x 2 meter. Very useful. For this shot I used it as a diffuser, with a semi-transparent fabric, to get a large fill light. A Profoto Compact with a Zoom reflector behind it gave the scene a lot of soft light to lift the darkest shadows. And that is the reason there are two edges on his shadow.

On camera left there is a reflector with white fabric to reflect a little light to show more structure in that part of the picture. Just to avoid it going completely black and without details.

One of the best things about using this kind of hard light is that every photo looks different. Just move the body a little bit or turn the face, and the shadows moves to make something new.

But, as I mentioned earlier, it is not for everyone. Most people would not be happy with the results, and I can’t blame them. But, sometimes when I get the chance I take a step away from my safe lighting setups that works almost all the time and try to make something a little more exciting. And I am very thankful for every chance I get.

All photos shown here were shot with a Nikon D700, a 85 mm/1.4 lens at f/3,5 and 1/200 s. The fill light were on the lowest setting and I used a ND-filter (a neutral grey gel in front of the light that took away 3 exposure steps of light) and the main light was also on minimum effect I think.

Next time it would be fun to try it outside, it might work fine alone with all the snow we have that can be used as very large reflector panels.

One type of product photography that seem to have a growing demand in the photography market is the clean and simple packshot. Usually shot on white background with soft shadows and very even lighting. Easy to use for the clients both in their web shops and printed material.

Even if it seems to be easy to achieve decent looking product photos with a cheap camera and a light tent, many clients of mine have already tried that and wants something a little more professional looking.

My latest assignment in this field was a product shot for a company that sells pills of different kinds, they needed a photo for a magazine ad.

The Brief from my Client

I was in contact with the Art Director who also was in the photo studio during the shot to help me getting the shot exactly as she and the client wanted it. Most of the time I work alone, but having the client or someone from the ad agency assisting helps a lot to avoid any misunderstandings.

In short, they wanted a very open photo, with lots of space around the products, and the background should no be completely white, rather a light grey with some shadows/reflections from the products.

The Studio Lighting Setup

Before the Art Director had arrived with the products, I had prepared a lighting setup using three monolights, all Profoto Compacts.

I didn’t know if we were going to shot the products from an angle, slightly from above maybe, or straight on, so I set up the lights for a setting that allowed either to work.

From the beginning I worked with the post production in mind, I knew I was going to fake the even background in Photoshop so the lighting didn’t need to be perfectly even, as long as it was light enough. I did some test shots with a color correction card to use as a reference later when setting the correct white balance and adjust the colors.

Light 1 – Main Light

The products I shot was quite small, maybe 15 cm (7-8 inches) high, so I used a Profoto Softbox 60 x 90 cm (2 x 3 feet) as my main light from above the table. The light is very large in comparison to the products so the light should be even enough.

I angled the softbox a little towards the products from the camera, but not more than that so I still would have a small shadow directly under the products. If the light comes from a lower position, there will be no shadow and the products would seem to be floating on the background. Not exactly what I or the client wanted.

Light 2 – Side Light and Fill

The idea with a little light from the side was to define the round or cylindrical shape of the plastic bottles. I used a Profoto Strip Softbox 30 x 120 cm (1 x 4 feet) for that. To get the small light on the side even smaller, I added a mask to the softbox that makes opening only 7 centimeters wide (2-3 inches).

The resulting test shots from this setups showed that the side lighting was a little bit too hard. The white plastic material in the bottles was very easy to blow out so I added a reflector with diffusion material to soften the light a bit, between the softbox and the products.

Light 3 – Background Light

As I mentioned earlier, the final image would need a lot of post processing to get the background light grey all around, so this background light was mostly to minimize the risk of getting the edges on the products too dark. A Profoto Softbox Octa 150 cm in diameter (5 feet) did the trick.

Adding shadows

When the right products were in place, the image felt a little flat. The main light together with the light from the side needed a little more shadow (on the other side) to define the shapes of the bottles better.

The easiest way to add shadows in table top photography is just to place something dark close to the product just outside the frame to remove spill light and reflected light.

By some strange reason I didn’t have any black paper or board to use, but I had a black bag that worked just as well. I just placed it on the table near the products and a soft shadow appeared on the left side (as seen from the camera), just enough to make the bottles look like bottles, and not like flat objects.

Shiny transparent pills, and slippery too

The client wanted not only plastic bottles in the picture, but also the small Omega-3 pills. In real life, they look almost golden and very tasty in a way. But as they are transparent they are quite hard to light. Especially if they lie together and the light shines through them in strange ways.

We tried a lot of ways to make them look natural, both as pills and as a whole, but when we tried to make a small pile, they almost looked like fish eggs and that was not at all what we wanted. It was not extremely large caviar we wanted to sell.

Finally we settled for three pills to lie in front of the bottles, but to get them to stay in the right place was not that easy. The pills are quite slippery and I didn’t have any rubber glue or stuff like that, to fix them in one position. After some experimenting we found out that the shell could be made sticky if we just licked on the pills, after that if was just a matter of placing them right.

Separate lighting for separate parts

Now we had the three bottles in their right places, and the three pills as we wanted them. The problem was that the lighting that made the bottles look good almost blew out the semi-transparent pills.

They didn’t look golden or tasty at all. Next time I think I will try to set up the lights in two different ways and then combine the photos into one.

The solution this time was to take two different photos, but I just blocked some light with a orange/yellow piece (which also added some more color and saturation) from one of my camera bags for the pill shot to have a better starting point for the retouching of the final image.

In the end, I almost painted the pills in Photoshop as I wanted them, but it made it a lot easier when a had a photo without a lot of blown out highlights to work with.

Retouching, Before & After

This is the final image we shot, unedited directly from the camera.

And this is the final image after post processing but before I enlarged the canvas in Photoshop to make a really big image that made it easy for the client to use it either in portrait or landscape, they would just need to crop it.

I adjusted the colors, removed some dirt from the bottles, added a little shadow on the bottle to the right and painted the pills so they looked like we wanted them to. Moved them a bit down as well.

The background was removed with a clipping path and then added back in with a layer mask to use some of the shadow and reflection on the surface in front of/below the products.

A final note

This is not how I use to work. I usually like to set up the lights and take pictures that needs a little post processing as possible. Working this way on ten or thirty or a hundred product images would never work for me. It would take too much time and cost too much.

But for one image, it’s fun to see how something as simple as three bottles & three pills could be so hard to create and look so easy in the end.

And the client is happy, so I am happy too.

This was a test shot before taking studio portraits for a consulting company in Sweden. Having recently bought a Profoto AcuteB 600R I tried out a studio setup with four flashes. Usually, I use a reflector as fill, but having another flash head to work with, I wanted to see the difference in light and how it could be used to more flexibly lighten the shadows in my portraits in a better way.

Studio lighting setup in short

Having four different light sources is in many ways a very flexible setup, but at the same time, many variables that can create problems before you get it right. The good thing is of course that you can light your subject from four different angles and modify the light from every angle with a different light modifier. The problem is that it takes some time to troubleshoot if it doesn’t look good.

Big soft main light

For this portrait I wanted, as I usually do, start with a big, soft light as main. The biggest softbox in my arsenal is the Profoto Octa 5′ (150 cm), and I think it is the best softbox for half-length portraits in my studio. If I have to use a smaller softbox, that would mean that I place it closer to the subject, and that takes a way a bit of working space for the model. Not too many people are comfortable with being surrounded by flashes and softboxes, so giving them some space might be a good idea.

Flash fill instead of reflector

Usually I have a reflector from Photoflex as fill, but with my new Profoto AcuteB 600R I could place a flash there instead, and at the same time be able to control that light instead of just reflect some of the light from the main light (or the rim lights) to lift the shadows.

The rest of my light comes from Profoto Compacts, and they have a high light output, even on the lowest setting. The AcuteB can go a few steps lower, so I just had to set this on the lowest setting to work really well as fill.

I placed the fill light very low, with a semi-transparent shoot-through umbrella, on a small stand just 50 or 60 cm from the floor. So instead of having a reflector just bouncing back some of the light from the side, I could have fill coming from below.

For this purpose, a camera flash such as a Speedlight, would also be a good idea. Easy to place and easy to adjust the output setting on.

Two rim lights from behind

To give this portrait more depth, I added the remaining two flashes as rimlights. Mostly they highlight the sides of the model’s forehead, but also add a little sprinkle to the hair on the sides of his head. I like this effect as it better shows how the underlying bone structure is shaped. But, of course, if the model would have more hair, most of the light would hit the hair, but then it at least separates the model from the background a bit.

White paper background

Most of my portraits use a roll of paper as background. Sometimes a use a medium grey, but the white background is the most flexible as it can go from bright white to black depending on much light you allow to hit it.

To create a different portrait, I could have used anothed flash for the background to light it separately, either with a snoot or a gridded modifier to light parts of it, or a filter gel to tint it in any colour I want. But, that would require another flash which I don’t have. Not yet.

After the shot

When we where satisfied, I processed the chosen photo in Nikon Capture NX2. The program itself is a bit of a hassle and not as easy to work with as, for example, Lightroom. But sometimes it is worth the extra trouble.

Please leave a comment if you have any questions or suggestions.

This photo was one of around 50 I shot for a client in Sweden last year. They needed good business portraits of their employees for their web site and printed marketing material, and they needed it to be done in their office.

Simple portraits on white background

I brought three Profoto Compact flashes, some stands and reflectors to set up a small studio on-location in their cafeteria. All portraits were shot on white background and the fake background you can see above was added later in Photoshop. We had an image bank with around 20 different background that we used.

Studio lighting setup for business portraits

This shot was planned beforehand and the setup we chose was one that was trying to look a bit like sun coming in from a window into a large office area from the side and from behind.

Early on, the client said that we needed to take similar pictures with similar lighting later on at different locations, so I documented this shot with distances between the different objects on the set for reference.

Click here for more Business Portrait setups and tutorials on my blog.

Profoto Octa 5′ as main light

To have a large light source as my main light, I chose the Profoto Octa 150 cm. And to create a warm light with soft shadows I placed a large Lastolite reflector (Sunfire) near the model as fill light. The effect of the gold-silver striped surface of the Sunfire screen is a bit warmer than the usual white or silver, which sometimes works fine with portraits.

Simulate window light from behind

As the portraits were to be copied onto a blurred background with large windows we tried to make it look like the rim light on the models came from outside the room. The idea was to have the background images with a window visible that we could place the subjects in front of, and to have the rim light to separate them a bit from it.

Another reason for this was to make the post processing a bit easier, as the portraits we shot on a white background, it would have been a lot more work in Photoshop if we had used less blurred background with darker areas.

Rim lights and reflectors

The rim light from behind came from another Profoto Compact placed right behind and on the side of the background paper we hang from the ceiling. On that flash, we used the standard reflector but I wanted to spread the light out a bit so I placed a reflector to make the light hit from the side as well as from behind. If that made any difference, I don’t really know, but it might have added some more light on the model’s left side of the face.

To make the photos easier to mask, I used the last of the three flashes to light the background to completely white, almost blowing out the highlights.

Post processing and montage

For this photo session we had a great make-up artist at our disposal, so the retouching in Photoshop was easy. But masking is always time consuming. The plan was to make that part quick with backgrounds that were easy to use, but it always takes time. Especially when you have to make the same work on 50 different photos. Nothing you can make an action for in Photoshop really.

It might have been easier to use a green/blue screen, but it would have required more work lighting it correctly, and more equipment to transport.

The rerun

After doing this for two days in a row the first time, I did it again a couple of month later at a different location. The setup was almost the same, but this time I used only one reflector. The results looked the same, so I guess that one was not really necessary.

But, having the lighting setup diagram with all the distances was a great help. Another thing that helped me a lot was to start the second project by copying one of the .NEF-files (Nikon’s raw-format) to one of my Compact Flash cards and rename it so the camera would be able to show it.

That way I could see, in-camera, exactly if the histogram from the last shoot would match the lighting in the new setup. And it did, after a few adjustments. A time saver in Lightroom as I could use the same settings before doing the final work and masking in Photoshop.

You learn something everyday, almost.

One assignment I had 2009 was to take portraits of the jury members of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA), the world’s largest prize for children’s and young adult literature. The room I had to my disposal was a small conference room full of books (of course). Other than the bookshelf, it had one really useful piece of furniture, a light light grey, almost white, plastic table.

With me I had three Profoto flashes, all Compacts, but with the tight space I ended up using only two of them.

Main light medium sized but close

After trying out different angles, I chose one where my models/subjects would sit at the white plastic conference table. The main light was a Profoto Compact in a 90 x 60 cm (2 x 3 feet) softbox. The softbox was placed right outside the frame so the medium sized softbox would give a big and soft light.

I usually prefer my models to stand when I do portraiture, mainly because of the fact that people tend to have a better posture when standing up. But, this time, having them sit at a table in front of a bookshelf felt appropriate.

Table as fill light

Other than framing the portraits with the table it served another purpose. It was light grey, almost white, with a matte surface, so it worked perfectly as a soft fill from below. Without it, the shadows in the faces would have been a lot stronger and darker.

Separation from the background

To make the subjects stand out a bit from the bookshelf background I used the other flash to create a rim/hair light from behind. Placing it on a stand beside the bookshelf and pointing down gave a hard edged light which worked fine as a separation, I think. Maybe a bit strong in blonde hair, but the added highlights adds something to an otherwise dark photo.

I only used the standard reflector for this flash, but it might have been better to have had something with a softer light? But, on the other hand, the space was really tight so I’m not sure if I could have been able to place something bigger than just the flash without it becoming visible in the frame.

Postprocessing and retouch

Most of the portrait where more or less good to use directly from the camera, but I had to clone away a hole in the table used for computer cables. I experimented a bit with adding more blur to the background to simulate a bigger distance between the model and the bookshelf, but that didn’t look good, so I went for the natural look instead.

If I were to do the same thing again, I would wish for a slightly bigger room or a shorter table, so I could get some more blur on the background. That, or using ND-filter on the flash heads to bring the effect down a bit so I could use a larger aperture and getting a smaller depth of field.

For this shot I used my Nikon D700 together with the 85mm/1.4 that I use for most portraits in or outside the studio.

Click here for more studio lighting setups and diagrams. Or visit my portfolio with larger images.

Thanks for stopping by.