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Rolling with the BIG Dog - After 2015 Convention - part 3 of 1 2 3 4 5

by Damian McGillicuddy Published 02/02/2015

I could equally have set up my lighting to give me a pristine white background, but the point is that my background needs to have its own lighting dedicated to it; if I rely on the light illuminating my subject to also illuminate my background, then one or the other is going to suffer. You wouldn't expect your background light to also light your subject, so the opposite should be equally true!

With our foreground and background lighting in place, I positioned my third speed light to camera right of the subject, fitting it with two barn doors from my McGillicuddy Portaflex Kit in order to create a fine blade of light. This acts as a 'carving light' (a term I've appropriated from the movie industry!) that will provide separation by literally carving the subject out of the background.

The key here is that we don't want this light to strike the subject's nose, which will destroy the effect we've created using the umbrella. Instead, we're really aiming to strike the ear with our light in order to create that 'eclipse'-like sculptured effect on the side of the face and head.

And there we have it - with three cheap speed lights and an umbrella, we've achieved a stunning example of classic three-point lighting portraiture. Something you should also notice is that there are no reflections in the subject's glasses - just another example of how effective a simple brolly and a bit of knowledge can be!

GETTING A POLLOCKING

As popular as the baby photography was, and as much fun as we had having a giggle about the use of umbrellas in Boots, far and away the most fun was another 'first' that we brought to the Convention. I like to call this presentation, 'The Subject is My Canvas', but you might also call it 'making an internationally published fashion model strip down to her tighty whities while we chuck paint at her'!

Clearly I must have been reminiscing about my days at art school, and probably having a bit of a Jackson Pollock moment, because I wanted to create a cool editorial image by using a model as my canvas and hurling paint at her - the twist being to use high-speed flash to arrest the motion of the liquid and capture a snapshot of the moment of spatter and impact. And of course, the best place to do this was live in front of an audience in a carpeted area of The Hilton. Honestly, sometimes I can't believe the things I get away with in my job!

Joking aside, the first trick was to protect the venue we were shooting in (if only because I stay in Hiltons quite a lot, so I didn't want to be blackballed!). We bought a timber frame and in essence created a makeshift paddling pool using plastic sheeting, duct tape and pond liner, which we extended up and over an additional white paper backdrop positioned to the side.

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1st Published 02/02/2015
last update 09/12/2022 14:51:42

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