Lighting on location in a post flash era. Less is optimal.

 

For Samsung, in NYC.

Location lighting was different a decade ago. If you were shooting for commercial clients and wanted clean color while photographing in a space lit by a combination of mismatched fluorescent lights, with a big dose of daylight streaming through windows which had a green tint to them, your general "go-to" plan was to bring enough strobe power to totally overwhelm the mixed lighting. Set a high sync speed like 1/160th or 1/250th and just overwhelm any light that would give you an unwanted color cast in your image. If you wanted the background rendered in the same neutral color you lit it with the same kind of electronic flash.

This "technique" was tried and true but it also meant that photographers were bringing mountains of gear along with them to shoots, running extension cords all over the place and spending ample time lighting and testing. When LED lights came into play, along with various other continuous light sources, everything changed. At that point we were no longer in the game of overpowering existing light but instead finding ways to coexist with it. 

I did a lot of research back in 2008 and 2009 about the best ways to light with LEDs. I had to. I was writing a book on the subject. My guide quickly became learning the methods used by videographers and film makers. This entailed subtracting unwanted light rather than overpowering it. 

In my business we take a lot of location portraits in areas with mixed light. My nemesis has always been unwanted top light. Lights positioned up in ceilings ( usually called "can lights") that cast unwanted light on the tops of models' heads, shoulders and even their faces. I realized that the best way to deal with these light sources was not to try to out muscle them but to block them altogether. I might find the lights useful for lighting up a long hallway so I don't want to kill a whole circuit outright I just want to deal with the ones that pollute the light falling on my main subjects. 

Taking my cue from movie gaffers I started putting light blocking panels, called flags, between the top lights and my subjects. Then I could bring in my own lights and design a nice portrait look. If the color in the background was off it's easy enough to select the background in PhotoShop and apply some color corrections after the fact. The crux of the job is to make sure the talent it well lit. Mixed color casts on a face are a bitch to fix.

Over the years I've used foam core panels, pop up diffusers with black covers, ENG panels and frames and  a range of pro tools designed for the film world. But what I really wanted was something that was light enough not to tip over a heavy light stand when extended up ten feet or so. Something that was easy to pack down and quick to set up. Something that had multiple other uses and didn't cost a bundle.

Turns out I had all the pieces already sitting in the studio, patiently waiting for me to figure it out.

When I light two different portraits today, at one of my favorite law firms, I'll set up my LED lighting as usual but when I go to blocking the can lights above my subjects I'll be doing it with a 48 inch or 60 inch photo umbrella. I'll use an adapter on a lightweight side arm to extend the umbrella over the top of the subject and position the umbrella about two feet above the subject's head. The umbrella I'll be using is much lighter than a 4x4 foot panel and it's easy to pop up and attach to a bracket. Adding the black covered umbrella lightens my packing and hauling while providing the same kind of light modifying potential. And if I inadvertently destroy or lose an umbrella it's an easy, sub-$50 cost.

Pulling the unwanted light off the subject is probably the single most important method of making continuous lighting work on location. While you might think it would be easier just turn off the top lights most offices are wired so that turning off just the lights you don't want is nearly impossible. Turning off one set of lights might turn off lighting over a large amount of square footage and not every client wants to disrupt an entire workplace so you can get a portrait done. 

And even if you could kill all the lights in the space you'd have changed the look and feel that led you to select that particular location in the first place. 

Today's load out has been distilled down to two light stands, one side arm, some clamps, a couple umbrellas and a backpack full of fun cameras and lenses. Of course there is the main light and a back up light and, a key piece of gear = the cart on which to get all this stuff from a high rise parking garage to an equally high rise office building, up the elevator and across an expansive lobby. I could lose the cart but if I did I'd have to hire two or three assistants to carry everything. That's not in the cards. 

Subtracting unwanted light is my goal for this morning. Wish me luck.