Hi everybody welcome to another episode
of Exploring Photography, right here on
Adorama TV. In today's episode we're
gonna do something really cool with aluminum
foil. This stuff right here. We're going
to use this to create a really cool
background. But before we do that I want
to first introduce you to Ale.
She is a phenomenal model here in Medellin,
Colombia and what we're going to do is
we're going to create a very beautiful
portrait of Ale.
So to start we're gonna begin by
building our interesting
background using aluminum foil.
So let's do that right now.
I want to begin this
lighting setup by creating the background.
Now normally I would be
using something called black cinefoil, but I
just didn't have any in my camera bag.
That's no problem because I'm going to
use this.
This is normal aluminum foil.
So the way this works is we're going to use
this aluminum foil to create what's
called a gobo.
So I've got my handy dandy knife.
We're gonna use this knife to
punch some holes in this aluminum foil
So you can do whatever pattern you want.
Please don't cut yourself.
You want to create some holes in the
aluminum foil,
little curves and stuff, something
that's not quite as big as that.
I've already pre-cut some aluminum foil, and
so what I'm gonna do here is, I'm going
to bring this guy.
So I've taken some aluminum foil,
and I've cut some very very small slices in
this and then throwing this to Sam, the assistant
off camera.
So what I'm going to do here
is... I'm going to take this and use this
as a gobo.
What the gobo does is it
allows us to shoot light through that
and then it creates a shape on a
background.
Now this is something that's
used in theater a lot.
You might want to throw a fake window
or something on the background, but you
can use it in photography too.
The point with this is you're gonna have
to play and experiment because to get
something that looks good
using this technique...
can sometimes take a long time.
Now what we're gonna do is...
we're going to take this gobo, this
aluminum foil.
I just created a little arm using a Tether
Tools Rock-Solid Clamp on a light stand.
I'm gonna put that in front of a light.
Now this is not just any light,
it has something attached to it.
It is a very very small grid... this
is a 5 degree grid.
This only works when you have a grid
like this.
If you try to do this with
just a normal head like that, it's just
not gonna work.
You're just gonna get light going everywhere.
So you need to put a grid in your light.
Once you have that grid in there
that's going to restrict the light,
but it's also going to create some
really crazy patterns, as it goes through
your gobo, your sliced up aluminum foil.
What we're going to do though to
show you how this works is, we're going
to take this to a wide-angle shot, turn
off all the lights in the studio, turn
this modeling light on and then I'm
going to move this forward and back in
front of this light, and that's going to
focus this on our white background, and
you'll see for yourself what this does.
So let's do that right now.
Now that the studio lights are turned
off, I'm going to be a weatherman for
just a second and show you what's
happening in the different regions
behind me.
Over here this is what's being
projected by our homemade gobo,
and we can change how this looks by
changing the
distance between our gobo, which is right
here and our light.
So we can make those farther or closer
together to focus what's
happening here.
You can also see that right in this region
over here, we have a tonne of light.
That is the light that's being reflected off
this aluminum foil...
which is why black cinefoil is better.
We wouldn't have this problem over here.
So now let me go back here, and move
this gobo around a little bit, and you can see
that when I move it farther away, and
closer to the light, we get different
patterns on our wall, and also by slicing
different patterns on our aluminum foil
or cinefoil, we can change what's
happening over in our gobo region.
Now our gobo is set up and we've widened out
our camera angle because we need to show
you the entire studio cause it's time to
bring in our key light and start working
with our model. This is Ale, she's not
just a model but she's also a
photographer here in Medellin and so
that's going to be fantastic because she
can help me meter, that's really cool.
So we're ready to add a key light and so
Ale if you will hop back about, I don't
know, a couple feet in front of the white
background. What I'm gonna do here is
first I'm going to just set this up like
I normally would on a normal one light
setup. So from the camera I'm going to
have this
at about a 45 degree angle, that usually
gives us some pretty good light. So let's
go ahead and meter that. Just hold that
up and I will hit that. That's it. 6-3.
Okay perfect. So let me just take a quick
shot. Look right at me, perfect. Uh, I mean
it's okay but it's, it's really boring. So
this is a very boring shot because we
just totally obliterated everything that
we did with our gobo that took us so
long and so the background is just
reverted to a light gray background and
so it's just simple it's not what we
want at all. So we're gonna change things
up. This key light has some magic to it.
So this is a two-foot octabox, a
Profoto two-foot octabox, but what I've
done as you can see here I've added a
grid to the front of this. That's
controlling how that light falls because
what we want to do is we want to have a
really nice soft light, but we don't want
it bouncing everywhere, we don't want
to get into that background because we
want our cool little gobo to show up
and so what we're gonna do here is I'm
gonna put this at about a 90 degree
angle from the camera and so that's
going to make sure that the light only
goes this way, it doesn't go to the
background. So Ale you're gonna have to
step forward just a bit. Now let's meter
this.This time we're going to meter
to the light. So let's go ahead and
point that to the light. I'll flash that.
That is at f/8, perfect. So look straight at
me. I will do this and okay this has some
problems. So now we have no light from
the key light on the background so we
still have that pattern that the gobo
created, except now you look like an old
black-and-white horror film.We don't
want that. So what we're gonna do is
we're just gonna change how our model is
standing. So instead of straight on we'll
have her turn into the light. So go ahead
and turn into the light and I might
fudge a little bit over this way as well.
So I'm gonna focus on her. Take a shot.
That is so much better, that is really
beautiful, but we still have one more
problem to solve, so let's get to that
next. Well now that we have our key light
all set up, we've got our cool gobo light.
Let me show you a shot and just
explain why we have a problem with the
setup. So Ale is gonna be right where she
needs to be. I will take a quick shot
here,
and that looks pretty cool but if we
look closely on this side, on Ali's hair
on this side of her face...
it's just darkness, and I don't want that.
What I really want is...
I want it to look angelic.
We need to even things out.
I don't want to get into a complicated
lighting setup, by adding a second light,
the easiest thing to do is just bounce
the light, adding a reflector.
So Samuel is gonna come in, he's going to help us
out here.
He owns this studio, he's lending it to us.
So Sam if you can just put that about right there.
We're gonna try to have this light bounce
from here, off this board,
onto the back of Ale's hair.
So let me just take a quick shot
here, and see how it looks.
Oh that's looking pretty good,
but I think we need to bring this out just a
little bit more, something like that.
Let me take one more shot and ah yeah,
if we take a look at the before and after
shots, you can clearly see that we're
adding a lot of light to this side of Ale's
hair, and that is really gonna add
punch to this photo.
Let's begin over here, we can take
a look and see that this gobo is going
to be throwing light on the background...
as we move around our lighting setup, we
have our reflector, and it is set in
position with our camera here.
So it is reflecting the light from our key-
light right here, right back into the
opposite side of Ale's hair, which is perfect.
Now we can check the key-light and you can
see that it's actually feathered... just a bit.
So when we go up above that you can
see it's not exactly hitting her
straight on.
We're just getting a side of
that light, it's just a little bit of a
feather and that really softens that light.
Let's take a closer look at our key-light.
The thing that we really want to
make sure doesn't happen is for light to
spill on our white background, because
that's gonna wash out that cool effect
that we got with our little gobo tinfoil.
So what we're gonna do here is, our key-
light is almost exactly parallel to the
background instead of having it at a 45
degree angle, which would illuminate Ale
and look great, but would also illuminate
the background.
So I've turned it and so that it is facing
this way, and so if we come over here and
go above our little reflector here,
you can sort of see how this works.
This light is bouncing directly into our
reflector.
That's making sure the light bounces
around here on to the other side of Ale's
hair and it really illuminates that, makes it
look nice and soft, but to make sure
Ale's face is illuminated, the trick is
instead of her standing toward the
camera, she has turned her body... she is
looking into this light, that illuminates
the majority of her face, giving us what
is called broad lighting and it looks
really amazing... without messing up our
effect on the background.
Now that we have everything set up we
can start with the fun,
and actually start shooting, so
let's do that right now.
There you have it, you can use some
aluminum foil... or even better some black
cinefoil, to get some very interesting
effects in your studio.
Try it out and let us know how it works in
the comments of this video.
Also check out the description of this video
because I've included links to Ale's
Instagram, so you can see more of her work.
Also follow me on Instagram.
I'm constantly posting some
behind the scenes videos in my stories
and shots that didn't make it into the
video, so do that.
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Thanks again for joining me and I will
see you again next time.