Playing with Light

I wasn’t able to get out and explore as much as I would have liked this summer. Fortunately, it gave me an opportunity to play with off-camera lighting. I already had a basic understanding of the main characteristics of light: Intensity, Quality, and Direction. Most of my understanding, however, came from assisting on shoots/being a 2nd shooter or making “safe” adjustments when working with clients.

This still-life project was an opportunity for me to go crazy and experiment with the direction, quality, and intensity of light. Manipulating these things helped me become more comfortable with my tools & better understand how to control light. Plus, I had a blast staging and shooting the scenes. Fun fact: I accidentally spent 6 days doing this.

Staging the Scene

Side lighting with a 5-in-1 reflector — white side out

I was “voluntold” to make a trip to Target and when I came across the pitcher, the idea for a still life shoot started coming together in my head. I walked around the store to pick up a few more items that I’d need for the shoot (e.g. small towels, a glass vase, and poster putty). After that, I made a quick stop at Publix to buy some flowers.

For most of the shots, I used a combination of weathered wood and slate replica surfaces because I wanted the tulips and vases to stand out from the background and shadows. I used my Canon 5D Mark III in manual mode and played around with different lenses (100mm f2.8, 70-200mm f2.8 L, and 24-70 f2.8L), focal lengths, apertures, and shutter speeds.

Lighting

Equipment used:

• Canon Speedlite 580 EX-II

• Godox X-Pro controller

• Godox X1 receiver

• 32 in. octobox softbox

• 12x36 in. strip softbox

• V-flat

• 5-in-1 reflector

• Gray card

My aim was to see how the balance between light and shadow affected the mood of a scene. I spent the next few days moving the modifiers and lighting around, tweaking the power of the flash, then observing how drastic & subtle adjustments changed each scene. Altering the direction and angle of the light, varying the distance the light had to travel, and adjusting how the light was reflected or absorbed by the different modifiers created different vibes from the same scene.

Rembrandt lighting with a v-flat and 5-in-1 reflector — white side out

I’d primarily used flash in TTL mode before this shoot. I’ve become more familiar with manually changing the power output & changing the zoom head will either concentrate or scatter light.

I was able to get the results I wanted by using side lighting with the octobox and Rembrandt lighting for the strip box. Seeing the effect that shaping light had on a scene was quite interesting.

Having the freedom to just play around, and using different settings taught me quite a bit about the relationship between lighting and mood. More importantly, it eased some of the anxiety I had about taking control of elements other than the camera.

Trying different things just to see what would happen & attempting to get the same shot more than one way was super fun. Shooting the flowers from one day to the next was fascinating because I documented the progression from blooming to wilting. Changing elements of a scene while using the same subject allowed me to get a better appreciation for how the aspects of light change the tone of a scene. I haven’t mastered off-camera lighting but I’ve certainly become more comfortable with making my own adjustments to the lighting.