Tricks to get a better light in the eyes?

Hi!

I'm enjoying the frustration at learning strobes, kind of, but the thing that I'm not happy with at the moment with shoot through brollies or reflectors is the resultant illumination in the eyes. An example from today attached below.

Is there either a trick to get a nicer look by crafty positioning or can a better look be got by using more sympathetic modifiers?

Thanks

Mike

Welcome to the wonderful world of "it's all in the details"

All of the below comments are based on the assumption that you're asking about how to modify the look of your catch-lights:

I'm guessing you're using a shoot-through umbrella? If so, try a normal white/satin umbrella. This way you'll just have a round dot. Basically, the catch-lights are a reflection of the type of light source and its appearance. So if you use a soft box you'll have a square or octogonal shape. One trick I like to do is use a large softbox and use gaffer tape to tape lines over your soft box. This will make your catch lights look like a window and has a cool effect for close-up shots like this.

But since you're learning strobes right now I'd suggest for you to just play around. Move things 360 around the subject. Move it closer and farther away. Try bouncing the light off a wall or reflector. Take note of how different changes affect different outcomes.

when doing portraits you can bring in the umbrellas very close to the subject and it is probably better to use shoot thru as opposed to reflective which is what you used in your example
with shoot thru the catchlights are usually round and uniform

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Thanks for the ideas. I have been using continuous 'hot' lighting up until now but the whole look and feel of strobes is so different.

Cheers!

Ditto on trying a good quality white satin shoot through. Is your umbrella a silvered reflector? Wescott makes a nice one, Photoflex, etc. You can also put a strobe in a softbox, which will give nice square catchlights. Here's my avatar blown up shot with a Wescott covertible shoot-through.

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And a picture of my daughter lit with a shoot through. You can still tell it's an umbrella, but with a little less on-axis positioning and the more even light coming through the fabric (make sure to zoom your flash out to as wide of an angle as possible), the catchlights aren't as blotchy as what your picture shows.

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