Professional studio photography lighting part 5: Another fashion lighting setup

Hey guys. Today we will learn another fashion lighting setup. This lighting setup also requires two flash heads. One to illuminate the background and one to illuminate the model. The lighting ratio for the two lights is 1:1. This means, the background light and the key light should have the same power (for more about lighting ratios, check Professional studio photography lighting part 2: Studio portrait photography).

The background light is a regular flash head with no attachments. The key light is a flash head attached to a soft box, for a softer more diffused light on the model. Attach a flag to the main light to keep light from spilling behind the model onto the background.

Optionally, you can add some fill on the other side of the model with the incorporation of a large reflector or a foam core bookend opposite to the main light. That will catch some of the light from the softbox and bounce it back onto the dark side of the model for side fill.

Another fashion lighting setup is one that is very similar to the one we discussed in our last post of this series (Professional studio photography lighting part 4: Fashion lighting setup), except without the flash head with the snoot pointed towards the background. So you typically place a 4×6 softbox with a grid to one side of the model for key light, and a large full-length reflector on the opposite side as fill light. The contrast in this lighting setup is usually high. You can move the reflector closer to the model for more fill (thus less contrast), or further away from the model for less fill (thus more contrast).

Stay tuned for more =)