Welcome to New Thing Thursday! An excuse to learn/experiment with new things and blog about them. Some will be photography and some won’t, and I’ll probably use it across all my sites, so keep an eye out!

Today it was photography based, so here we are…

Lighting Experiments

New Thing Thursday - light experiments | carlawatkinsphotography.com

My usual style is bright, bold & vibrant, and has also been described as “airy” – whether indoors, outdoors or studio based, I generally create bright and light photographs.

So I asked the lovely Sarah Wayte to come and model for me so I could experiment with more dark and moody lighting in my studio. Current set up there is two Elinchrom flashes, one with a massive octabox and one with a long narrow rectangular softbox, and a white paper backdrop. So far, so simple… and so not really lending itself to dark portraits!

Techniques I tried include:

  • using both lights
  • using one light
  • turning the flash power down
  • different positions of the lights
  • using just the rectangular softbox
  • making my model stand further away from the backdrop
  • angling my model
  • making my long-suffering model jump in the air
  • playing with warm & cool effects in editing, to change the tone of the shadows

Here are some of my results… I had a blast, and I am in love with the vibrance of her hair in the darker shots, but I think on the whole I prefer my usual bright, light, vibrant shots…

 

New Thing Thursday - light experiments | carlawatkinsphotography.com

New Thing Thursday - light experiments | carlawatkinsphotography.com

New Thing Thursday - light experiments | carlawatkinsphotography.com

New Thing Thursday - light experiments | carlawatkinsphotography.com

New Thing Thursday - light experiments | carlawatkinsphotography.com

New Thing Thursday - light experiments | carlawatkinsphotography.com

New Thing Thursday - light experiments | carlawatkinsphotography.com

New Thing Thursday - light experiments | carlawatkinsphotography.com