Weekly Challenge 4/11/14 - One Light
Something a little different happened this week. Instead of me taking a couple of days to think what it is I actually wanted to do and then last minute cobble something together, this time I actually got the idea right away. Immediately after I woke up I started setting everything up and proceeded to spend the next couple of hours figuring out how to take really great shots with only one light source. So I had one hot light with a giant soft box attached to it and decided to make the best out of the situation. Seeing as how I only had the one light, there wasn't an easy or nice way to create nice even lighting, so I opted to try out some low key shots instead. The great thing about only using one strobe is that the possibilities for creating really dynamic and beautiful lighting is relatively easy. With a little trial and error and the knowledge of how lighting works, I think I created some really powerful images (if I do say so myself).
I started out with a shot I've never done before which is a profile shot (from the side) with the light pointed directly into my face at almost full power. Positioning the subject (me) at just the right distance from the light source created very bright highlights on my face and a harsh drop off past my ears and shoulders. It gives a really cool fade to black kind of look, which is a prevalent theme in some of these other shots as well. I then lowered the power of my strobe and angled myself at 45 degrees to create a really soft glow with the shadows filling in the little details of my body. I also wanted to bring in a bit of variety by showing that you can still light the background as well as your subject, by placing the subject (me again in this case) far enough away as to not soak up all of the light and then bounce the remaining light off of the white walls. The result creates an image where I'm well lit yet the background has just even definition in it to be able to tell what's going on behind me and still have enough separation between the background and I as to not blend into the walls behind me. This challenge was pretty fun and the rest of the images are in the gallery below in case you're interested. Come back next week when I take on another challenge. You know what? come back sooner than that, because I post multiple times a week with interesting and (hopefully) you can learn something or at the very least gets some ideas for your own shoots.
