There is little difference between lighting a studio to an outdoor location. The only difference is that you’ve got ambient light to contend with. Arguably you’ll learn more about lighting a subject working outdoors than you will in the controlled environment of a studio, but the downside is the amount of kit you may need to do so. Lighting for photography is our bread and butter and we must master it to truly create evocative imagery. I use the term Fiat Lux as we can both create and shape light to do this.
Generally I break the scene down into zones which allow me to light each area independently. In studio you’ll have your classic white wall and your subject light, in location you may have a subject light, the room, ambient light and possibly accent lighting to enhance features/mood. In location you usually have some form of ambient light to work with. You have to consider your environment you’re working in and take it into consideration for your lighting rigs. Environmental factors can be space, objects in line of sight, objects that cast shadows, property considerations and so on.
In all these set ups you have common thread of a Constant Light source. In a studio these are your strobes, for a room it’s the ambient light of doorway or a window for example, for outdoors it’s the sun or a streetlight.
Model: Sinister Apathy
So how does this work in action? I’ll cover the two scenarios with lighting to give you an idea of how I light the scene.
In this headshot you have two light sources; I was going for a strong contrast to create impact. I first set up the background light to f/11 this is my constant for any other lights for a white background you generally need to be around 1stop lighter than your subject light so for my subjects it’s now f/8. If I wanted to add a third light for fill then I know it’s going to be f5.6 for one stop difference or maybe f/4 for a strong contrasty look. The background was lit by a Elinchrom Octa Midi using a Elinchrom 400BX, and the foreground lit by a 43” silver umbrella lit by a Elinchrom 300RX.
The second image is working with purely natural light which I couldn’t do much with the light other than trying to over power the sun with my Elinchrom Quadra or scrim it. The image was shot on the beach at around midday. Each option has their strengths and weaknesses.
Natural light on the beach, make up by www.emmajane.co.uk
To control the light I used a large Lastolite Skylite scrim to soften the harsh sunlight and create a soft romantic mood, and the main reason I chose this method. Balancing the Elinchrom Quadra would have been more challenging in this light and would have given a different look. Since the Lastolite Skylight was my only light source and therefore my constant. The other reason for using the scrim over the power pack is that it was quicker to set up and there was enough ambient to achieve the look required, plus the scrim would also give me more flexibility in that it was a large light source and I could move the model around without having to change the light settings on a power pack, and being a broad constant light source this makes it a lot easier to pose the model.
Because the scrim cut the amount of light hitting the model I could balance the exposure between the sky and the model. If there had still been to much dynamic range between the two points I’d have added a touch of fill light from either with another reflector or an artificial light source like a the Canon 580EX dialled down one to two stops as a fill light.
With both of these examples in mind you should be able to break your exposure down into manageable chunks. Something worth noting, whilst I have applied this principle to portraiture there is nothing stopping you applying this to other forms of photography. Whatever the subject there is the premise of a constant light in every image that helps create the story.
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