Advice on lighting setup - is this going to work?

ajax_andy

ajax_andy

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Andy
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I am due to shoot a group shot later today where each person will be stacked behind the other, and the aim is just to only have half the face of each of the 4 people in shot.

I was thinking of lighting it with OFC to the side where the faces should be lit, and use a shoot through umbrella on a stand that is raised slightly above head height and pointing down.

I have a diagram below of my idea and would love some feedback on whether this is the right way to light it. I would place the flash at the mid point of everyone so as to hopefully evenly light everyone, but would I be better using a bounce umbrella to get a bigger spread of light??

Also would I be better putting the flash at head height and not above so as to get less shadow on the face i.e. under eyes etc?

I should add that although I've drawn the body and legs the pic is actually just a head shot of all 4 people.

2rxvha8.jpg


Any advice would be greatly appreciated :)
 
Whether something like this would "work" surely is down to your vision. Are you after hight or low contrast? If you want to lift the eye socket shadows, do you have a reflector, second light or even ambient light to do this for you?

Not a dig, but a little surprised a working photographer would ask such a fundamental question on open forum.
 
hairboy said:
Whether something like this would "work" surely is down to your vision. Are you after hight or low contrast? If you want to lift the eye socket shadows, do you have a reflector, second light or even ambient light to do this for you?

Not a dig, but a little surprised a working photographer would ask such a fundamental question on open forum.
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Hi hairboy,

Haha yes working photographer but it's not the type of shot I normally do, and other than a few studio shoots in my home I've not done much in the way of this kind of thing.

I'm looking for a well balanced light on the half of the faces you can see, a little bit of shadow for depth (which is why I felt positioning it above them pointing down would be best... the question about reducing eye shadows was a little stupid in hindsight as I need this), and will be using ambient light too.

I also plan on using another flash on a white wall behind them to make it fairly white but not completely stark as they haven't specified this and put "light, neutral background".
 
Fair enough :) From your description, I would probably position the group close to wall, and use a white umbrella which would light both the group and the background sufficiently, and use other light as a fill - if you are after a nice deepish shadow, perhaps 2 stops down? Since you are only working with 2 lights, to light what is already a white background on a separate plane would be a big waste of your resources, I'd say.

Good luck with it.
 
I would do the shot as planned but also do them individually, then if the 1st set doesn’t go to plan you can use Photoshop with the single shots....(not sure if it will work but could be a good backup plan...)
 
hairboy said:
Fair enough :) From your description, I would probably position the group close to wall, and use a white umbrella which would light both the group and the background sufficiently, and use other light as a fill - if you are after a nice deepish shadow, perhaps 2 stops down? Since you are only working with 2 lights, to light what is already a white background on a separate plane would be a big waste of your resources, I'd say.

Good luck with it.
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Thanks... ooh both them and the wall with one light? Hadn't thought of that... will give it some thought as if the wall is still a little grey I could always just fix it in PS anyway. :)
 
Danzaroonie said:
I would do the shot as planned but also do them individually, then if the 1st set doesn’t go to plan you can use Photoshop with the single shots....(not sure if it will work but could be a good backup plan...)
Click to expand...

Ahh yes plan B... don't worry they've already been informed that I'll be doing a full group shot and then individual one's too... Always best to have a back up that I know will work and I can just make a composite of all of them if the main pic doesn't work out.

Thanks for the comment :)
 
Would the faces of the persons in front not hide the shadow side of the faces behind?
 
EOS_JD said:
Would the faces of the persons in front not hide the shadow side of the faces behind?
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It shouldn't do as they will be stacked so that the lit side shouldn't be cast in shadow from the person in front of them.

Plus there will be ambient light too so hopefully it should be fine.

I hadn't considered it being a problem but it's something i'll look out for and if it's problematic I'll try and work something out, and if all else fails I'll have the individual shots that I can merge together.

Like i said it's not something I'd considered so if nothing else it'll warrant a closer look on the LCD to check there's no overlap so thanks for the comment :)
 
I think I read the project slightly wrong :)

I'm not sure side lighting would be best though as that will throw a strong shadow on the opposite side? Lighting so that the shadow is thrown behind the subject in front would work.The person in the front will possibly need some fill.
 
A shoot through umbrella would be a poor choice, spilled light will not only cause flare but will also cause unwanted light, bounced off of other surfaces. How bad this will be will of course depend on the proximity of walls, ceiling etc, but it will definitely be a factor - so use either a reflective umbrella or a softbox instead.

And use a black 'absorber' on the dark side, to increase the dark effect.
 
i would like to see how the finished photo turns out & which way you eventually ended up doing the shot.
 
Hi everyone, thanks for the replies.

I ended up shooting each person individually and merging together in photoshop. Shooting everyone together didn't really work due to the height differences and also the order people had to stand in to accomodate this (CEO at the very back, new recruit at the front)... the lighting actually was ok with the shoot through but other factors really didn't work.

I ended up just shooting people individually with a shoot through at about 45 degrees to subject and slightly above pointing down. Ended up with a nice mix of well exposed and shadow depth. So much so that they are going to use the individual shots for things in the future, as well as the composite of all merged together.

Client was very happy with the merged pics too so I think doing it this way was better all round.

I'll pop the finished version on here at some point :)

Thanks again for everyone's help!
 
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