Guess the Setup Game

I like to guess setups from the catchlights and light direction and quality, bit of a weird hobby of mine. I picked it up from one of my first photo teachers who was a bit of an engineer, worked at NASA and stuff like that, and would ask us to identify the lights used in each photo during our training sessions. I've graduated and now do it at the mall with advertisements all the time, but no one indulges me there. Can any of you guys post an image and then the rest of us guess the setup? Not sure how you guys feel about it, but I think it would be a fun and edifying game that takes advantage of the format and medium of an online forum like this. What say y'all? Care to join me?

OK, here you go.

My guess: two softboxes or stripboxes to the sides, above and behind model, one beauty dish and socked in front of model, pointed at her face.

Yes, with the exception of the sock as I recall. This was actually the first time I shot in a studio, and the first time with a model. It was a Meetup workshop and the organizers placed the lights and turned us loose. Since then I've also started to look more closely at different images to try and figure out the lighting.

I've even started to pay more attention to how ambient light falls on the people around me during the day; in a boring meeting, walking on the street or standing in a store lineup - first look for the light and then for the different effects.

Spats139 wrote in post #17518497
I've even started to pay more attention to how ambient light falls on the people around me during the day; in a boring meeting, walking on the street or standing in a store lineup - first look for the light and then for the different effects.

Nice. I always tell others that flash is the best way to accelerate seeing light in general, natural light. A lot of beginner photogs don't believe me, and the ones will ignore flash and claim to be solely "natural light" photogs, their work generally plateau and fall off and they'll quit after a while. That's after five years of experience training photography students and staff photographers, so I think it's fair for me to make this generalization. The best natural light photogs have used flash at some point in their life!

Well, idkdc, looks like it's just you and me. Here's another one:

Yeah, was hoping this would get more interest. Hairlight behind, beauty dish in front judging by the light fall off and rapid gradation in on their arms.

One speedlight on the ground behind them, and two more in a single 2x2 softbox camera right. This shot was at 11:00 AM on a day with light overcast so it was quite bright. Cut the ambient back as far as I could without going to HSS, got the softbox in close and hoped for the best.

This one should be easy.

Traditional 2-light Rembrandt setup with no background or rim/hair light.

Yup, one softbox to each side; with grids; first time I've actually used the grids. There is also a white reflector on the table just in front of him to fill in a little bit under the chin.

I missed that, but now that you mentioned it is obvious. I'd like to see a comparison of with vs without the reflector. Standard convention leads me to believe his neck will appear slimmer if in shadow.

bumpintheroad wrote in post #17569966
I missed that, but now that you mentioned it is obvious. I'd like to see a comparison of with vs without the reflector. Standard convention leads me to believe his neck will appear slimmer if in shadow.

I don't have any shots without the reflector; I'll try to remember to take both the next time I do a similar setup.