Lighting techniques

Lighting #1 Cross lighting 

This is one of my favorite lighting setups and it's really pretty easy to do.As you can see from the diagram bellow, its a three light setup. My key light was a 250w hot light through a white umbrella, placed with the light just above head height and aimed down slightly so that the central pole pointed to the models nose. This gives a nice soft wrap of light with those great catch lights in the eyes....  Read more 

Lighting #2 Simple beauty lighting

This is a very simple yet effective set up that requires only 2 lights and a reflector. It works great for a nice evenly lit head shot with a soft gradient background. You can also easily add drama to the shot by simply moving the key light to the left, right or even over head... Read more 

Lighting #3 catwoman location shoot

This shoot was great fun and a bit of a lighting challenge. We shot in the stair well in the back of a nightclub and then on the roof of a multi story car park just after sun down. Click through for a run down on how I lit the shots including lighting diagrams and what kit I used... Read More

Lighting #4 ~ Muscle Definition

Just recently I was asked to photograph a body builder for a competition to appear on the cover of Mens Health magazine. Having never lit for muscle I found this a nice little challenge and I thought I'd share my approach here.

So the brief was ~ B&W images on a flat white background with as much muscle definition as possible. Surprisingly this was remarkably easy to achieve..... Read more

 

 

 

Lighting #5 ~ Ayla Sky nude shoot BTS video

Just before xmas I had a fantastic shoot with an amazing model called Ayla Sky, we shot two quite different sets over about 4-5 hours in the studio and had loads of fun while we where doing it. I put together this fairly lo-fi video {shot on my mobile phone!} to illustrate how I lit the two different sets.... Read more