In this video, I'll show you how to use a
single overhead light to create dramatic
portraits in your small home studio!
Hello I'm Gavin Hoey, and you're watching
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And in this video I'm going to do a portrait
shoot with an overhead light source.
Well technically it's going to be a softbox,
that's in front
of my model, above my model, and
behind my model, to create three different looks.
Now having an overhead light source is a
very different look and feel to having
your softbox off to the side, something I
looked at in a previous video, and in a
small home studio.
It creates a few problems,
the main one for me being ceiling height,
or lack of it, because this is as high as
I can get my softbox.
Now that means, I really need my model
to be lower down, so
they're gonna be sat down, and probably
sat on the floor, so I think the first
thing I need to do, is make my floor a
bit more interesting, then we'll set the
light. Let's get a model in, and let's get shooting.
So to help me out today, I've
got the amazing Sophie.
Sophie's gonna to be the model for this
shoot, and as you can see's she sat down
on the floor.
Now the floor for this is actually the old
decking from my garden, and it should
look really nice in this set up.
Above Sophie I've got an explorer 400 in a
fairly large 38 inch softbox, now it's
pointing straight down, and I could
adjust this by angling the light around.
That would change the shot quite a bit,
but for consistency throughout this
video, I'm going to leave it always facing
straight down, the other thing you'll
notice is that Sophie will be the same
distance from the background throughout.
So only the light will change position.
Now the first position I've got it in is
a sort of classic position, light in
front of Sophie, her head is roughly in
line with the back edge of the softbox.
I want to work out the the light that's
reaching Sophie, so let's get my flash
meter, and discover what that's going to
be, so when I'm metering the light, I'm
always going to point the little dome,
towards the light source, which is
straight above Sophie like that.
I'm getting f/4, that's perfect, that's what I
want to shoot at, so let's take a few
shots like this, and see how this
lighting setup looks.
You can start by looking straight ahead of me,
and as you can see this works really
nicely. Sophie is correctly lit, there's
lovely light on the foreground, but that
background is really dark, and that kind
of makes sense, because it is the
furthest thing from the light source in
this shot. So for the second setup, I'm
going to move the softbox so before it
was in front of Sophie, well now it's
going to move just a little tiny bit, so she
is right underneath the center of it.
Now that might not look like a big amount of
adjustment, but it'll have a big impact
on the shot. Now what's going to happen?
Well now the softbox is a bit closer to
the background, so I'm expecting this to
get a little bit brighter, but conversely
there's less soft box in front to light
Sophie's face, so maybe a little bit less
light there. I'm gonna check the amount
of light that's coming and reaching the
top of Sophie's head by getting my flash
meter. I'm not expecting a big change if
any, because although we move the light
we haven't necessarily got it any closer,
so let's just come and have a little
look here,
and sure enough it still reads f/4 so
let's see how this looks.
Okay... so looking at the camera... first of
all... so looking at
these pictures, there's a lot more
contrast on Sophia's face, and when she's
looking directly at the camera
her eyes are in shadow, but the moment
she looks up at the light, this works
really well, and gives a lovely balance
between illumination on the background,
and illumination on Sophie. So the final
position for the softbox, is going to be
even closer to the background, and I'm
going to try and line up the front edge
of the softbox with the front of
Sophia's face.
Now if I go too far and go
even closer to the background, no light
will get on Sophie's face, and we'll have
a silhouette which could be a look
you're after, but not what I'm going for today.
So I reckon probably around about
there is pretty good, so in this position
there should be much more light on the
background. Very little light, but some on
Sophie's face, it should give her a lot
more contrast to the image.
It might affect the exposure... it might,
let's get a little meter reading.
Now if I meet her from the front here, it's
definitely going to affect the exposure,
so I need to be roughly in line with
Sophie's face. Let's get a meter reading
in here, and it still says f/4, so
note same exposure, great let's take some
shots like this, and as expected that
background is now much brighter, and if
Sophie's looking at the camera, where we
can't really see much detail in her eyes
at all, but the minute she looks up at
the light, we can see into her eyes, but
we have that really high contrast look,
with deep shadow and highlights on
Sophia's face. So as you can see, I can
get three very different looks simply by
moving this softbox closer or further
from the background. So let's try that,
we'll experiment, we'll do a little bit
of a shoot, and see what we come up with.
So Sophie are you ready, okay let's do it,
so I think we'll begin with the lights
swung out to the front.
Now I'm going to move the softbox, so it's
directly over your head, you can look at
the camera. You can look at the light and
I think I like this, this is a nice versatile
lighting position,
and finally light towards the back, this
time to get light in your eyes. You have
to look at the softbox not the camera
overhead. Lighting in a small home studio
is a bit more tricky to set up than side
lighting but if you can overcome the
obstacles, it's a really great way to
light your portraits.
Now if you've enjoyed this video, don't
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I'm Gavin Hoey.
Thanks for watching.