BJØRN CHRISTIANSEN | Photographer

Having written a bit about shooting documentary style photos I want to give you some tips on how to do basic lighting in a studio for portrait, fashion and commercial purposes. This is a shot from one of my assignments at Norsk Fotofagskole. It was a part of the photo marathon we had the last semester in second grade. The task was to shoot a commercial for glasses. We got the assignment early Tuesday morning at it was due to the day after. Having quite a few friends in Trondheim I started making calls finding models suited for these types of photos. I got two yes-es and had hoped for just one, but since I had the opportunity and it didn’t do much to have two models I booked both models. The next step in completing this task was to get the main accessories and getting an idea of what the final result should look like. I went straight to a shop that sold spectacles and asked them to lend me some glasses. Making a deal with them sending them photos after the shoot I got to borrow quit a few spectacles. Next up I had to figure out what my models should wear. Since I had experience shooting school portraits and glasses is something many can relate to studying I wanted to have this kind of feel to the photo, but raising the idea of quality by having the models tie their hair back and wearing straight, light colored shirts.

With the help of my friend Sascha Njaa I rigged the studio and did the shoot in two hours. Here is what I wrote almost two years ago about the technical specifications:

Lighting the scene

This picture is lit by four Elinchrom BX Ri 500. There are two flash heads with strip-light softbox on each sides and behind the models pointing at an 45 degree angel at them, one flash head at a tripod with a beauty dish and grid almost straight on the models and one octabank shooting straight into the ceiling on the left side and about a two meters away from the model. I have also two polystyrene boards with the black side facing the models and another one with white side up in front and facing up reflecting into the models eyes.

So why do I use this lighting setup? Setting up a studio like this from back to front as I usually do I want a main light source to light my subjects. The ABC of lighting techniques you should always set up a flattering light, the types of lighting varies from model to model and from expression to expression on the models. Having two models some might say that I complicated the scene a bit, but having the right equipment and an idea before you start rigging the studio, it helps a lot. The main light source in a typical school portrait comes from a slight angle, the more know Rembrant-light comes from an angle of 45 degrees from either the left or the right side of the subject and the nose is casting a shadow across the face furthest away from the light source. It also creates a triangular light shape beneath the eye furthest away. This models the face quite drastic which was not in my plan. Another setup that I use quite often is the butterfly lighting that I used at this particular shot. The main light placed straight in front and above of the model pointing slightly down making the nose casting the shadow straight above the subjects over lip. To even out the shadow that can be a bit to sharp I placed a white board below the models angeling it upwards and evening out the shadow and also casting light into the iris. The second light I set up was what I call an ambient light to further lighten the faces but also the background in the scene. Modifying this light source with a large octabank / softbox this doesn’t do much to the shadows in the models faces but evens out harsh shadows created with the beauty dish (main light) even more than the white board below the models. It also helps me light my white background a bit so it does not turn totally dark, but gives it some tone to it. The two black boards on the left and right of the models adds some contrast to the subjects. Had it just been just white walls around the studio the colors would look a bit washed out. The two light sources on the left and right, positioned further back of the models gives highlights to both the shoulders and the sides of the models helping me sculpt out their faces. In straight on school portraits you just might use two light sources, one main light and one on the background. Shooting with a white background, depending on the setup, stray light might do the same job as the two light sources behind the models. The two light sources behind the models are modified with two strip light softboxes. This is because I don’t want any light spill on the background and I also want large light to hit the models faces not creating any harsh shadows.

Shooting portraits in studio you might consider having a plan for each shoot, bring some accessories in form of clothes or spectacles to give the model something to work with. Plan the lighting and the feel before starting rigging the studio. It also helps having an assistant to help you out both rigging and giving you creative feedback as you work towards a final photo.

For my two models, Maria Ishoel Frelsøy and Karoline Dilling Broks I’ve published four new pictures from the photo shoot we had on Tuesday for the assignment spectacle commercial at Norsk Fotofagskole. Spectacles I got from Brilleland and goes by the brand Moods of Norway and Lyle&Scott and are new of this season (W/S 2011).

The last picture in this post is another selection after getting comments on Maria’s hand that was a bit miss placed.

Since I had a this commercial assignment with spectacles I just had to photograph the four pairs I borrowed from Brilleland as a product photo. This was shoot was just a quick and dirty fix with no planning what so ever. The light I used was a halogen work light that was used, during the photo festival we had at school, to light Jock Sturges’ gallery. A high bare bulb light, with the color temperature of about 2500K.
The spectacles I shot were from Moods of Norway and Lyle & Scott.

Evaluation went well, the teacher pointed out the fingers on the shoulder of one of the models and didn’t really see the point in shooting horizontally and ended up liking the one portrait of Karoline the most.

Next assignment

The next assignment in our photo marathon at school is photographing architecture, Hovedfagsbygget at NTNU Gløshaugen. This is an old building from the early 20th century in a gothic style. I’ve photographed this building several times before, but not mainly architecture. Now I’m going to pack my tripod and other photo gear and head off to NTNU.

I have two photos from yesterday that I like a lot. I like the stuck up expression of the two models on the tall one, but the hand on that photo isn’t helping much. The horizontal one gives the photo a dramaturgy with both models looking at “something”. I like their expression on this one too, but I did shoot it in horizontal of some reason.
In an hour I am having evaluation and I am thinking about delivering three photos, just the one with Karoline and the two with both girls. Hope Mr. Øhlander is happy with at least one of them.
The spectacles are new of this season (W/S 2011) and from Moods of Norway. Brilleland was so kind as to lend me four pairs of spectacles that we could shoot. I also had a pair of Lyle & Scott and yet another pair from Moods of Norway. The shirts are borrowed from Zara.

Lighting the scene

This picture is lit by four Elinchrom BX Ri 500. There are two flash heads with strip-light softbox on each sides and behind the models pointing at an 45 degree angel at them, one flash head at a tripod with a beauty dish and grid almost straight on the models and one octabank shooting straight into the ceiling on the left side and about a two meters away from the model. I have also two polystyrene boards with the black side facing the models and another one with white side up in front and facing up reflecting into the models eyes.

3. One who has been tricked or made to appear ridiculous; a dupe: They made a fool of me by pretending I had won.

Today my assignment was shooting a commercial poster / portrait of someone wearing spectacles. I asked Maria Ishoel Frelsøy and Karoline Dilling Broks if they could be so kind as to pose for my camera this afternoon. No problem. After picking up some spectacles from Brilleland, Moods of Norway and Lyle & Scott, I picked up some shirts from Zara to go with the spectacles.
We had a lot of time in studio and did get to shoot all four pair of spectacles and even some watches that Karoline brought. The reason we shot the watches were because one of the other groups at school got an assignment, not very unlike the one I got, to shoot a commercial picture for a wrist watch and I thought it was a good idea to do the other assignment too. I realized that my styling were a bit too dull to shoot wrist watches. The two pictures added in this post were of somewhat less serious matter. Though I thought that they were to nice to just keep them to myself, so i decided to show them to the world by my blog and my Flickr profile. The rest of this evening I am going to spend doing post production of the final spectacle-image.

This is the second picture in my series I shot with Kristin Folstad yesterday. The shot was taken for a poster-competition and the photo marathon that is ongoing these three weeks in January. This is a more cute, melancholic and sweet portrait of Kristin, no hard facial expression as the first one were. Makeup and hair is done by Hong-My Thi Nguyen supervised by me.

Lighting technique

This portrait is a high-key photo which is a technique where most part of the information in the picture is on the right side of the histogram, instead of a mid-key photo which has all information spread evenly throughout the histogram, the opposite of high-key is low-key, which has all its information in the left side of the histogram. A high-key photo is fairly light and the shadow areas, which in most photos define the shape. This particular series is shot with four light sources, two Elinchrom BX Ri 600 with strip-light softbox from each side and behind the model as a kicker-light defining the models edge and one beauty dish about 45 degrees above the model and almost straight on. Since the boom wasn’t available I had to use a regular tripod. To avoid having the tripod in the models face, the beauty dish is positioned slightly to the left of the model. Also I have modified the beauty dish with a grid to give more contrast to the image. The last light is also a flash head with a softbox behind and right of the model shooting at a slight angel at the background give it a nice, even light.
The last thing in this rig is three polystyrene boards painted black, two on each side and one as a ceiling or roof above the model. This gives the image more contrast instead of having all the white walls in the studio casting reflection and killing the nice shadow the beauty dish makes.

Next assignment

We had evaluation of the Jazzfest-posters we shot today, but we couldn’t publish since it was sort of a contest. Next assignment is shooting a commercial picture of glasses. I booked two models I haven’t shot before, so I will gain a bit new experience this time as well. I am going for a classical beauty-shot with strict styling, not very different from the series I did with Kristin yesterday. I went to Brilleland in Kongensgate and got to borrow four pairs of glasses, some from the new collection from Moods of Norway. Hoping styling, models, makeup and glasses will fit well together. Studio time is from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m. Wish me good luck!