Fashion Photography – Lighting on Location

MEN’S FASHION EDITORIAL – LIGHTING TECHNIQUES FOR TV

Location Fashion Lighting – Shooting in California without going there! 
Lighting on location as though we were in California!  Canadian editorial magazine Harold asked us to create a California look if possible with the cold grey skies generally associated with the UK. We managed to find a location in Kent UK which had a modern look to it, and we were really fortunate to get the Californian weather which gave this look I thought some authenticity.
Ramping up the light source for me, I decided a feel to the pictures similar to David Lachapelle would be interesting, although in a completely different style.

OUTDOOR FLASH LIGHTING – ALTERNATIVE LIGHT SOURCE MIXED WITH SUNLIGHT!

Using flash lighting and Californian lighting effect in the shadows
Ring Flash was great for some shots, but I had this idea that I could match the light from the sun outdoors I know how much light would you need for this! not much to be honest as you control your light and the suns glare with ISO, F-stop and flash. If you watch the video below, it probably explains it in greater detail than me here. The heavy white paint on the inside of the light control or reflector had a luminescent effect on the skin and when I tried this

A ring light or ringlash would be the main light source for a few of the looks becuase of the short burst intensive lighting. It also gave an unusal look to the images especially when used outside in the sunshine. The light source was very refective almost like a large silver reflector. Stangely though it created unusual light effects thorughout the day. I overpwered and balanced the light source to either slightly under-overexpose the image to see what effect it had.

Using this particular reflector which was designed for this was a suprise to me, with  very little effort the shot worked and had a sunshine glow to it. The same look as standing against the wall in the sunlight!. I powered this light source two ways. I had a couple of small battery packs which I had with me and worked well. Small size but big power. The main lighting power units were the 1.2 and 2.4 Creo which are rapid charge units and can fire of quick busts of light but not neaded for this shoot.

• Location Photography Lighting – Ring Flash: This was a BOWENS Ring flash that I had sitting around for a while and hadn’t really used it for anything, and it was a gift from Bowens to try and maybe chat about the way it worked. Well, I never did, but for this shoot it was perfect. I should imagine that it would be excellent if you were shooting for Sports Illustrated to get shiny skin.

• Power Units: The Creo packs were also a gift from BOWENS and I have used the numerous times. They were perfect to power up and slightly underexpose the existing light source namely the sun. It also power up two heads at the same time or independently.
  I shot on the Nikon D800 at the time with 50mm and a 24-70mm F2.8 Nikon lens which has been my go to lens for sometime.

• Working with the Location Lighting.
  Here you can see me getting to grips with the location and light shooting directly into the house. A lot of light around but I was managing to control the primary light source – The Sun, quite easily and get the exposures I needed

• Behind the Scenes Photography
  Always lovely to see the team working with you to create the overall look, as really there is no “I” in team and you are all working on getting the same feel to the story based on your mood board. Bear in mind though you are the frontman and the team will always take your direction as the final word.