Bravo Robert!
You are really doing well. You have progressed from merely asking questions to creating images that show real and essential control over the elements of light. There have been over 2100 viewing of this thread. That’s a lot of interest. One day soon, it will be great to see your new skills put to the test on a head and shoulders with a heart beat!
I think it’s been well established that any working professional needs a certain amount of professional equipment to do whatever job comes in the door. I have always used a 4 light kit. Main, fill, hair and background with additional lights available on occasion when I needed more accent lights or a more exotic effect for lighting the background.
The benefits for you learning about the science of controlling light is that you will be able to quickly solve lighting problems and create what you need to because you have the knowledge even when you don’t have enough hardware. As we have demonstrated here, you can achieve a great deal even when you don’t yet have a full kit of lights. We absolutely need a certain amount of hardware but NO amount of equipment will ever substitute for knowledge. As I love to remind my seminar students, your brain is already paid for and there is plenty of room left in it so why not load it up?!
Ok, let’s talk about some of the issues at hand. Your hair light looks pretty good. I know Wilt was concerned about the possible spill onto the side of the subject’s face. I appreciate his concern but there are no absolutes to this. We have to consider a number of factors that include the hair style of the subject, the size of the light source and very importantly the style of the portrait we are creating.
I have deliberately allowed hair light to kiss the side of a subject’s face on many occasions over the years for specific effect. Ideas and flexibility of thinking are what make a photographer unique, so think in terms of “What would look cool for THIS portrait” as opposed to “What is the rule for this”. Sometimes rules need to be broken but that should only happen if you fully understand the rule in the first place.
When using a small hair light such as a flash unit with barn door, I would usually avoid letting the hair light reach any part of the face. IF however, the subject were a bride with her hair completely up and her neck fully exposed, I might shift to a softer hair light by simply hanging a small diffusion panel in front of my hair light with barn doors. Now the light reaching the hair AND neck area is soft with a gradual fall off and can be quite pleasing if not overdone but again, it’s not something we do every time. Bottom line is that you are the artist and should create intelligently. If I were photographing a modern young couple using a lot of color, gels, smoke, I might let a great deal of hair light reach the sides of their faces to suggest the look of neon lighting from the streets. There is no limit to your own creativity. Just do it intelligently and never paint yourself into a box.
As a generally rule, I prefer to light long hair on a subject like yours from the side and behind her rather than from the top. Lighting from the top can leave the shadow side of the hair a bit lifeless and bland. Spread that hair light over the full dimension of the hair and it will come to life and look very attractive.
On your plastic subject, light the hair so that the highlight extends across as much of her hair as possible on the shadow side of her face without lighting her cheek. If you see light reaching her cheek, simply move the source toward the background a bit. Since you are using a “high tech” reflector that is controllable and directional, you should be able to train the light where you want it.
To comment on what someone said about needing more hair light, if you remember, I expected this to be a minimal amount of light. After all we are looking at a soft main light that has to travel past the subject, hit the reflector, lose a bit of it’s brightness just doing that and then turn around and travel another distance back to the subject’s head. Needless to say that distance from reflector to subject controls the amount of hair light reaching her.
You know, how much I talk about getting what you see and having a balanced set of strobes that will always deliver precisely what you see with your eyes. Well, when you are using fewer lights like this and are redirecting some of the light to other locations, you really will get what you see because much of the light is originating from a single source.
Ok, I will be looking forward to your next posts. Keep up the great work.
Take care,
