In this video, I'll show you how to add
depth to your portraits by making an
adjustable corner out of fabric walls.
Hello I'm Gavin Hoey, and you're watching
Adorama TV, brought to you by Adorama,
the camera store that's got everything for
us photographers.
Now recently I added a corner to my
small home studio, and when
I built the wall I designed it so I can
actually change the angle, and get more
creative effects, but when I built it,
well basically I built it way too much
way too heavy, I can't move it,
but the idea has stuck, so what I've
created are walls made of fabric, and
these are great, because I can lift them
around, move them about, and create
walls with corners of any angle,
the idea is I want to make a portrait in a
corner where I get a real sense of depth by
allowing the background to drop out to
black, however things have not really
gone to plan, and that's before I've
taken a single photo, some of the things
are my fault, others are just
restrictions of a small home studio.
The best way to go through them so you don't
make the same mistakes, is to get a
model in, let's get a light set, and let's talk
about some compromises.
Well the one thing I've definitely not
compromised on
is our model, so today I'm joined by the
awesome Chloe.
Chloe's gonna be helping me out for this
shoot but let's talk
about the things I have compromised on,
and I'm gonna start with the actual
fabric itself, so I bought four meters, so
roughly each side is two meters by 1.4
meters, that's 80 x 55 inches,
that is just about enough but
definitely more fabric would have made
this shoot a lot easier, then there is
the height in my room, which is a real
limitation, because what I'd like to do
is put a light up there with a big
softbox, but if I did that it would come
down so far, we really wouldn't be able
to see the top of Chloe at all.
So I've had a rummage around,
I found this really shallow ParaPop softbox,
I've got my eVolve 200, and pushed it a long way
inside, and I think that's going to give
me just enough height in this room.
Finally there is the position of the
light, so what I like is, both of these bits of
fabric lit evenly, that means I need a central
lighting position, and in theory that
would mean that the light stand is right
in the way.
So what I've done is, I've
moved the light behind the camera
position, and I put it on a boom arm so
it's not in the way, okay, so I've got
everything set up, let's just take a test
shot and see how we look right now.
So Chloe are you ready, here we go,
so at the moment I've got a picture with
some fairly poor lighting.
Chloe's correctly lit,
but the back, the back of
that fabric is exactly the same exposure
as the front, there's no depth in this picture.
So how am I going to make the
back of this go black, well usually I
would put some grids on my light to
control the direction, but this ParaPop
doesn't have an option of a grid, and I
can't make one fit, it or I could always
take the front cover off and use that to
control the lights, annoyingly it's
stitched on, more compromises, but there
are a few things I can do, and it starts
with the actual fabric itself, because I
know that if I use dark colored fabric,
it's going to be dark and black much
quicker than if I was using white fabric.
Then there is the direction of the light,
I've angled it straight down which means
I feathered it away from the background,
and that should control the spill back
there, just a little bit, finally there's
the good old inverse square law, so I've
got this really close to Chloe, as a
result the exposure on Chloe is going to
be very different to the exposure at the
back of the scene, and I'm going to check
that out by doing a quick bit of work
with the light meter, so let's take a
meter reading from where Chloe is standing.
So Chloe I'm going to pop this
near your chin, and that's set to f/5.6,
which is exactly what I'm shooting,
let's go right to the background, right at the
top so I'm not in Chloe's shadow.
Up here I'm getting f/0.9, that's
quite a difference in illumination,
and should mean that that area goes well,
pretty much black, let's take a test shot
see how this looks.
You ready Chloe?
Here we go...
This is looking really good,
but what I would like,
are slightly brighter walls,
and I can actually do that surprisingly
easily, so the whole purpose of making
walls out of fabric is they are
incredibly easy to move, so I've made
them a tighter angle.
The theory is, the closer the walls get to
the light source, the brighter they become.
That's the inverse square law,
I haven't changed the exposure on Chloe,
she should be exactly the same.
Let's take a test shot see if it works.
Here we go, so that looks really good,
Those walls are brightly lit,
and I have a really dark shadow behind Chloe.
There isn't much light in her eyes
because of the direction of our key
light being elevated above her head.
So what I've done is I've added a second
softbox way back behind the camera.
That's there for one purpose only, to add
a small highlight into her eye.
It's on a really low power,
it's not going to affect the exposure,
but we'll just see that little reflection of it
in her eye.
So everything is now good to go,
so I think we're ready to do a shoot.
So Chloe, are you ready,
here we go now, you might be wondering
about creases, well this fabric is pretty
good at hiding them.
I've done my best and minimize creases,
particularly at the front where they're
likely to be seen.
I've also asked Chloe not to press hard
onto the fabric, because of course it
would bend and that would look just a little
bit strange in the photos.
Despite all my compromises,
I think I've achieved more or less what I
set out to do, at least I'm really happy with the
results and that's probably all that matters.
I'm also really pleased that in
the final photos you don't see all the
clips and clamps and random bits of
timber that are holding this all
together, and that's the joy of
Photography.
Now if you've enjoyed this video,
and you've got any questions...
leave me a comment below, click on the
bell icon to get regular notifications on
all the brand new videos,
right here on Adorama TV,
and of course click on that subscribe button.
I'm Gavin Hoey thanks for watching.