Adding a little edge…?

I was asked to do a portfolio shoot for Helga (featured here) the other day, but to produce something a little edgier and with some striking black and white images. As to whether I achievedit or not, I’ll let you be the judge.

We were going to be working in a office over in Docklands, not too far from the Excell Centre, and thankfully we were also going to be inside. Given the extreme weather we have been having of late, this was very welcome.

After a quick scout around the building we settled on the breakout room on th groundfloor as our makeshift studio. It was nothing special, just a semi-large room with a few chairs a couple of tables and a pool table. This at first appeared to present a few possibilities as we were going to be doing lingerie but the biggest advantage was the empty room opposite we could use as an impromptu salon.

The problems to solve were that the white painted walls were not very interesting and full length shots were going to be difficult owing to the nasty grey carpet. This shoot was going to be controlled by the lighting if it was going to offer up any images of note. When we first started out, it had all the hallmarks of being an outright failure.

Cue the lighting…

As we were going to be working inside I had decided to bring Big Mamma along with me. This is an absolutely amazing light modifier: a 50″ square softbox that folds like an umbrella into which I was going to use a Canon 580exII Speedlite. Little flash, big light. Works like a charm, especially when triggered by the PocketWizard Mini/Flex radio triggers. The really cool thing about these gadgets is that they allow the Speedlite’s power to be adjusted remotely from a master sitting right on the hot shoe. This makes life incredibly simple and setting up is a breeze.

Big Mamma was accompanied by her little sister, the Westcott 28″ softbox. Both lights, when working together can produce an absolutely amazing beauty light.

BUT, today we were going to be shooting edgy and thats not beauty lighting! Great for the warmup shots but not for the real images we were planning to make. This is where the grids came in. Wonderful little devices these, just an array of holes that convert the light from a Speedlite from a rectangle to a pencil thin circular beam [see this post]. I absolutely love them. They cost about £15 and can produce some fantastic results. e.g. the image at the top of this post where I feathered the light from the 50″ to light Helga and aimed the speedgrid at the background to give a spash of light. I’ve shown the setup in the diagram below.

Same thing again but with a selenium tint added in post…

This next image is something slightly different, with the speedlite/speedgrid combo moved further back and used to light both the subject and the background, creating the shadow in the process. Very, very easy to do and something a little different too.

Finally, this was one of the first set of images we made. The original was shot in full colour and desaturated later in post. Lighting-wise I used the Westcott 28″ at about 90deg to the camera to produce more of a split lighting effect. I wanted deep shadow  but found I needed to allow the light to spill onto the background or the hair and shoulder to camera right.

I’m going to play around a little more with this arrangement as I’m sure this can be improved upon. I really like the symmetry running vertically through the frame: light side of face, dark background; dark side of face, light background.