Lighting How To

Hi everybody! I’m very excited to be launching a new Q&A column here in Shutterbug—a magazine I’ve been reading, and been a fan of, for so many years—so it’s truly an honor to be here with you. I invite you to send in your questions to editorial@shutterbug.com, and I’ll do my best to answer them in Ask a Pro. OK, let’s jump right to it.

Low light photography presents many challenges, but like any challenging situation it also opens up opportunities to create unique images. Think outside the box and you will be surprised at the kind of images you can produce. The techniques I describe below will get you started. Try each one and see why there is no limit to what you can create with some imagination and effort, and have some fun in the bargain.

When I realized that this column would be in the magazine’s lighting focus issue, I looked at the data for the photos I’d taken earlier this year during a nearly month-long combination of safari workshop, assignment, and stock shoot in Africa. What I found surprised me: I’d used flash on about one-third of the 13,000 photos I’d made on that trip. I had no idea I’d used my Speedlights as often as I had.

You enter a room bustling with activity. You see models posing in front of photographers on two different sets, other models patiently sitting getting their makeup and hair done, lights and modifiers everywhere, while one petite woman seems to be in charge of this organized chaos. Welcome to a workshop with one of the premier glamour and fashion shooters of our day, Lou Freeman.

Ray Demski captured this dramatic image sequence of Olympic Beach Volleyball gold medalist Jonas Reckermann in the Canary Islands for Red Bull. “I wanted to show the entire movement of Jonas Reckermann’s jump serve in a single image,” Demski told Shutterbug.

Dividing his time between his New York City and Paris studios, photographer Adam Savitch specializes in still life and motion studies for advertising and editorial clients, often with an avant-garde mindset. When it comes to lighting, Savitch believes in the old adage “less is more.” He doesn’t throw a light at every nook and cranny of his tabletop sets. Instead he mostly employs only one light and finesses its effect on the subject.

The flash bracket has become the “forgotten accessory” in photography but it’s still an essential tool if you’re looking to achieve consistent studio-quality lighting on the fly.