I'm shooting the staged portraits for a renaissance theme dance tonight and I'm second guessing my lighting setup.
My original plan was to just play the odds with a basic, reliable setup:
- Large (horizontal) bank light directly over camera
- Single gridded hairlight, high and behind the subjects
- Nice background
- Basic couples / small group posing
But after taking our daughter to get a costume yesterday, I began thinking that setup may not take do justice to the "fanciness" of the costumes.
So now I'm considering this setup for more dramatic light play on the subjects:
- Gridded beauty dish at 45-deg to camera right (key)
- Large bank at 45-deg to camera left (fill)
- Gridded hairlight high, behind and to the left (opposite dish)
- Scoop light on center of background
- Add an antique chair
- Same background
- More expressive posing
I suppose my question is this: Do you think I should bother trying to make these more theatrical, or just knock 'em out with basic lighting?
I'm not making a lot of money off this, and I'm estimating around 100 pops over a 3 hour period.
But post dance sales should drive new visitors to my website, and I do like the idea of being different/better than the rest.
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