Lighting setups when using models

[trailblazer]

Hi guys,
Let's say you have a model and you have just setup your lighting using speedlights. You are using 3 lights: hairlight/kicker, background light and key light.
Your model poses for you and you take pictures accordingly but then they change poses such that the your setup no longer complements the pose.
What do you do?
Break the flow and reposition the lighting?
Continue shooting and see what comes of it?

If you stop to reposition the lighting, how quickly do you do this?
Do you then have to do some more chimping and then reposition to suit?

Then finally, the situation is a rinse-and-repeat where you finally got things back into place and then the model does another interesting pose that once again brings you back to this dilemma.

How do you people who shoot models all the time handle this?

[TooManyHobbies]

Break the flow or have a lighting setup that allows you to do whatever without affecting lighting. Strobes work best for this since you'll need a very large source of light. Buy expensive softboxes or make a U-bank reflector and get a 16'x8' light source for $75, you'll still need to buy the lights and WB card, and light meter. You can also use wall if light enough.

As for hair light, if you can mount it above the background aimed above you, you'll have a large area to work with. just move the model back and forth depending on her pose height to get her hair lit right.

[trailblazer]

Thanks Jeff

[TooManyHobbies]

Forgot, this doesn't work very well dark backgrounds due to light spill, but still can with some creative thinking and enough room to seperate background from subject.

[Coastwatch203]

Youve got to, got to, got to, keep control in a shoot.....!!!

Your wasting your time if a model moves to where you know your lights arnt doing what you want them to...Even if she looks great with her poses etc...

Call a "Time out"
- I explain where i need her to be and why -Point to the lights and explain simply what their job is.... - where hair lights are aimed and why, I get her to work around a marked spot on the floor (with some leway on either side)
-It might be a bit of tape, etc, or whatever.

But Ive always found that with a simple explanation on the lighting setup - (most) models learn quick, and even suggest to me a light position change for a different angle pose.!

[trailblazer]

Useful information Mark.
Buying more equipment is not really in the budget for the rest of this year or even next year so it is the little things like this that are really appreciated.

[nrellas]

Originally Posted by trailblazer

Hi guys,
Let's say you have a model and you have just setup your lighting using speedlights. You are using 3 lights: hairlight/kicker, background light and key light.
Your model poses for you and you take pictures accordingly but then they change poses such that the your setup no longer complements the pose.
What do you do?
Break the flow and reposition the lighting?
Continue shooting and see what comes of it?

If you stop to reposition the lighting, how quickly do you do this?
Do you then have to do some more chimping and then reposition to suit?

Then finally, the situation is a rinse-and-repeat where you finally got things back into place and then the model does another interesting pose that once again brings you back to this dilemma.

How do you people who shoot models all the time handle this?

I run with it for a little while, see what I can get from the new pose and the light. If I really like the new pose and the light isnt working then Ill stop and reposition the light. I know a lot of people like to let models pose, but if you have some of your own direction in mind, its an easy way to minimize this situation. Also, with those 3 lights, most poses will work, the lighting setup is rather generic.

When I was just starting to shoot, I had an established advertising photographer tell me that 90% of photography is problem solving. You need to find how your working style fits into these situations. Maybe you need an assistant to help you, so you can just say "Hey could you please move the key light ___" or "Could you lower the hair light", "Turn down the power of ___".....

[DerekW]

Originally Posted by TooManyHobbies

Break the flow or have a lighting setup that allows you to do whatever without affecting lighting. Strobes work best for this since you'll need a very large source of light. Buy expensive softboxes or make a U-bank reflector and get a 16'x8' light source for $75, you'll still need to buy the lights and WB card, and light meter. You can also use wall if light enough.

As for hair light, if you can mount it above the background aimed above you, you'll have a large area to work with. just move the model back and forth depending on her pose height to get her hair lit right.

What's a U-bank reflector?

[TooManyHobbies]

Originally Posted by DerekW

What's a U-bank reflector?

Go to an art supply store and buy four 4'x8' white foam cores. Tape a pair together with white duct tape and you have "bookend" reflectors. Paint one side black (optional).

Now you have two bookend reflectors for fill or subtraction. They stand upright when you stand them as a V or L. You can shoot a strobe into the V as a bounced light source. You can shoot the one side of the V with a strobe so half is a bounced light source and the other half can act as a flag (barndoor) to control spill.

If you take 2 bookends and stand as "L"s to make a "U" you have a 4x8x8 U-bank reflector. Put it behind or to the side and bounce a stobe off as a big light source. Now you have a light source so large you can move around in front of it side to side, back and forth, without worry. It's a lot of fill and it's a big light source. You can always add more strobes pointed at your model if you need more contrast or key light.

If you have light grey walls in your studio, you could just use the walls but the bookends are more versatile and can do many things.
Cheap and easy light modifier that is very versatile.

Easy Kicker:
If you wall, ceiling, or clamp mount a strip box above your back wall in the center aimed straight at the camera but parrallel to the ceiling the light will spread down. Just move your model back and forth to get the right kicker. You also get some reflection off a white ceiling for fill. You need some space to make this work in a studio.