Hi everybody,
welcome to another episode
of Exploring Photography right here
on AdoramaTV.
I'm Mark Wallace, and in
today's episode we've got a bunch of
light shaping goodness coming your way,
but first let me introduce you to our
model her name is Ximena and she is
from Medellín Colombia, which is where
we are right now, and we're gonna be
doing all kinds of really cool stuff
that will help you shape the light that
you're using, understand how to process
your images based on that light, and also
work with the light modifiers that you
have in your studio.
It's gonna be a lot of fun...
so we're gonna get started right
now.
Before we begin we need to
understand four terms, they're very
simple the first is 'monochromatic'
Monochromatic just means that there are
different shades of luminance values of
the same color...
my shirt is monochromatic.
It's not black and white it's just
different shades of gray.
You'd have different shades of green or
red or blue whatever, it just means that
something has one color, and it's at
different values... from light to dark... not
necessarily black and white, could be
different shades of blue or green, but
it's monochromatic.
The next thing we need to understand is
'shape'...
Shape is when we see something...
a form of something....
but it's instantly recognizable...
like a silhouette of a person.
Shape is when you have something
that is two-dimensional, but you can
understand what it is when you start
adding light to something and making it
look more 3-dimensional.
Shape becomes form....
A 'form' is usually used in color
images... specifically for things like
landscape photography,
or nice portraits....
form is color....
and shape is monochromatic.
So things strong in shape tend to be
monochromatic....
the last term we need to
understand is contrast.
'Contrast' is just the difference between
the darkest and the brightest area in an
image....
high contrast images go from jet-black...
to the pearly white....
there's a huge difference.
Low contrast images go from maybe a gray
to a brighter day...
there's not much of a difference.
Shape in form is where we're
going to start...
so we're gonna start by
looking at things that are strong in
shape.
Notice this has circles and
squares...
and it's very, very strong in
shape, if you can look at this little
thing right here, this reflector, it's a
very strong round shape, we also have weird
shaped like this... little Christmas
decoration here, you'll notice one of the
things that is consistent in all of
these things is... that they are
monochromatic, so it doesn't mean they're
black-and-white....
it just means that there's shades of the
same color...
so that is a clue, that will help us learn how to
shoot and process our images.
So we need to know if we're going to be
processing are images that are really
saturated and colorful...
or if we're going to take the
opposite direction and desaturate...
maybe make him black and white...
that depends on if you're shooting form,
which is sort of a three-dimensional look
like a portrait or a shape..
which is more like a silhouette,
so we're going to explore how
to determine that, by positioning our light.
So we're gonna bring back Ximena
and do that right now.
Well now that we know our terms...
let's talk about how
the position of light can control all of
that stuff...
now I've done videos in depth
on position of light,
so we're gonna do this really quickly...
but I've included in the description of this
video....
all those other videos on position of light.
So you might want to check those out for a more
in-depth description of how all this works.
So first let's talk about our
light being on axis with our camera, so
Ximena is gonna come over here....
she is also on axis with the camera,
so Ximena....
it's our light, it's our camera,
everything is lined up in a row, this is
going to give us a really flat light, so
we're not really going to see shape or
form or contrast any of that stuff.
So let's start by metering this...
so we're gonna meter this right at the
light, and that meters right at f/8...
So I'm just gonna take a really quick
picture here, put my little remote on there,
so Ximena look at the straight at me...
Perfecto, it's just like that...
okay this is really boring and ugly light,
so if we take this light...
now we're gonna move
this to the side, so we're right over here.
This is side light, 90 degrees to
Ximena, so I'll get my meter, so we're
gonna meter this light as well.
So we're metering that, that meters at f/11....
so I'm going to turn this down quite a bit,
either that one more time....
Okay now we're back at f/8,
so the camera position has
not changed Ximena has not changed,
so we're just going to take this second
photo here...
got to put my trigger on the
camera for this to work.
Second photo here...
Okay we can see in this shot that the
contrast has been kicked up considerably.
The third shot we're gonna do here,
we're just gonna take our light...
and I'm going to put it
directly behind Ximena just like this.
I'm not going to meter this because it
doesn't really matter,
everything is on axis...
if I take this shot... BAM!
We can see that now... we have a silhouette,
so what have we learn from that light in
the front.... really no shape.... no form
nothing,
Light to the side...
higher contrast so the contrast is higher
when we move to the side...
so we're getting more contrast.
We're getting more shape...
and when the light comes all the way to
the back...
we're getting the maximum amount of
contrast...
and the maximum shape!
Now that we know all of our terms, we
known about contrast and shape and
position of light
let's put that into practice.
So what we're going to do is we're going to kick
this up...
we're gonna use two lights
instead of one, and both of these lights
are going to be using hard light modifiers.
In other words, we're not gonna
use any soft boxes or anything to soften
the light, because we want our light
to be really crisp, so that our contrast
stays way high.
Now what I'm going to be
doing here is...
I'm gonna have a Chi light,
that's gonna be illuminating Ximena
from the side, and then the second light
I'm going to be using is behind her, and
I'm going to be using this.
This is a Fresnel attachment, and so what this does
is it allows me to focus the light,
because as I showed you earlier, when the
light is behind our model, we can create
a silhouette, and so that's what I want
to do.
I want to have really high
contrast light from the side, and then I
want to add this...
so I can add a silhouette...
and that's going to pop her
off the background, which should be
totally black... the other thing we have
here is Ximena has a white shirt,
and then she also has this really cool
black shirt, and so we're gonna try both of
these, because the point of these is high
contrast, so we want our blacks to be
absolutely black and our whites to be
absolutely white, and so who knows which
one of these is going to be best.
We're gonna try both,
so without further ado
let's start shooting.
This is our lighting setup from the
perspective of our camera... so I'm
shooting it this angle, you can see that
the key light is to the right at a 90
degree angle.
That's giving us that high contrast,
now I don't have a grid that fits this head.
So I just borrowed one and clamped it to
my speed ring and networks just fine.
That makes sure that
Ximena has light on her face, but
nothing is falling on the background.
Let's talk about the second light over
here, so this second light is a Godox... it has
a remote head, so this is just the power
pack, I need to make sure that the sensor
which is this right here can see the
light coming from the key light.
So I've mounted this pack on a stand
slightly in front Ximena, so we can see the
light, and it'll trigger, and then we have
this light behind her,
that's adding our separation.
I don't have a modifier on
this at all, because I don't need one.
I just need light to be flying everywhere...
this light is hidden behind Ximena's
back, and then what does, is that make sure
we get a nice outline, and because we
don't have a light modifier that means
light is spilling onto the floor, and
onto the wall, and this back light is
going from totally black to a nice dark gray.
Now that we have this set up, let's
start shooting,
Now we're flipping things around instead
of having a really, really dark scene,
we're gonna have a high contrast scene
with a white background to do that, very
simple, they're the same lighting setup.
But I'm gonna just go back here, I'm
going to take this light, the bear lamp,
I'm just gonna turn it around, so now it
is throwing light on this background.
It's gonna be throwing light all over
the floor, it's gonna be all over the place.
So I need to meter this light,
and this is a little bit tricky,
because I want this to be white,
really white...
So I'm gonna make sure this is
overexposed.
So I'm just metering this like this.
I'm gonna close my eyes so I don't blame
myself alright!
That's metering at f/16, but what was
really important is...
how much light is hitting the back
of Ximena, so I'm gonna meter this again
with my light meter facing that back wall
when I meter that...
it meter's at f/8...
which is what this was metering.
The second thing I want to do is...
I want to move this forward just a little bit,
so that we lower the contrast on him in
his face, so I'm just gonna move this....
just slightly forward...
and make sure that's still
hitting her face.
Then I'm going to meter
this one more time, see how that works
out, and now we're metering it again at f/8.
So I just got lucky....
let me just walk over here....
take a photo and see how it
looks...
look straight at me, perfect, just
like that... and excellent, let me put this
on here.
All right, everything's focused up...
here we go... fantastic, I love it!
Thanks a lot...
many of these were awesome
images, we were able to create high
contrast black and white images.
You can use these principles to shoot just about
anything, remember the position of your
light and the light modifiers will tell
you if you're gonna have shape or form
or a silhouette, just move those things
around, and you can create some very
interesting things.
It doesn't have to be a person,
it could be product photography,
or whatever, play with this stuff, and see
what you can create, and then don't
forget in post-production
if you have something that has high
contrast, something that's strong in
shape, consider flipping that over into a
monochromatic, or a black-and-white image,
and see if it makes more sense
post-processing in that way.
Thank you so much Ximena for being a fantastic model.
You can check her out on Instagram, I've
included her link in the description of
this video.
Also follow me on Instagram,
because I'm always posting behind the
scenes videos of us creating videos, and
scenes from my travels around the world.
Don't miss that, also make sure you click
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Thanks so much for joining me..
and I will see you again next time.