In this video I'll show you how to
create spooky Halloween lighting in a
small home studio.
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...
And it's that time of year... Halloween is
right around the corner, which means I
get to turn my small home studio into
something just a little bit more creepy.
This year I've gone for a Chemist or
Alchemist, or Apothecary style setup.
Well I say that, but actually what I've
got is one of our old tabletops, one or
two old bottles... quite a few new bottles
but with stickers and filled with
colored water.. so for this to appear
creepy, it's all about the lighting, and
I'll take you through that step by step.
So let's get some lights set.
Let's get a model in...
let's get shooting.
So to help me out today,
I've got the amazing Sophie.
Sophie is gonna be the model for this,
and as you can see she is dressed as an
apothecary, sort of chemist, sort of
Alchemist, kind of look, which fits in
with the little scene we built in my
small home studio.
Now the lighting for this is going to be
very different to the light that you can see now.
I want this to be much more edgy
and dramatic...
and much harder light sources.
I'm gonna kick off with a speed light,
now my speed light is gonna light Sophie
through the lantern.
I want to give this the illusion
that the lantern is actually working...
it doesn't work, it's got lots of holes in..
it's quite dangerous...
so I'm going to tuck this just in behind.
Now you might notice that this speed
light is hidden by a whole bunch of
bottles... that's not a mistake,
that's all part of the planning
because I don't want the speed light to
be in the picture and these bottles will
they just hide the fact that this is
being lit by a speed light and not a
real Lantern okay let's take a test shot
see how this looks here we go so that
looks really good we've got directional
light but if it really was lit by a
flame it would have a much more warmer
orange tone so to recreate that all I'm
gonna do is get a piece of orange gel
pop it in front of the speed light and
put a little diffusing cap back on as
well
put it back into place and take the same
shot now the gel will act a bit like a
pair of sunglasses so I'm gonna adjust
my exposure just a tiny little bit
brighter and let's take that shot okay
here we go quick test shot and yeah that
works really well it does indeed look
like that lantern is lit and it's lit
with a flame now we've got quite a large
shadow area on this side of the setup so
to put our little wash of light in here
I'm gonna add a second light now it
could be any lights it could be a speed
lights but I'm using the Explorer 400
and I've just got a standard reflector
in here so let's just see how this looks
here we go so that looks okay but it
doesn't really have the mood that I'm
after so to get a bit more dramatic
directional light I'm actually going to
use one of these so this is a honeycomb
grid it's a really tight 110 degree grid
and I'm gonna pop that into the
reflector now there is a reason I'm
using the Explorer 400 and that's
because it has a modeling lamp which
allows me to direct the light with much
more accuracy when I turn off the video
lights now once again that will take
away some of the light so I'm going to
adjust my exposure to compensate for
that let's take a test picture see how
it looks so this is getting better now
we've got some mood in the picture but
it doesn't quite have the creepy feel
that I'm after so to achieve that I've
added one more thing to this light it is
a green gel and that should add a nice
sort of green glow to everything that it
touches so let's see how this looks or
once again you may need to adjust your
exposure when you've added the gel
that's great really good so this has
come together really well
I like the mood I like the spooky
feeling all we need to do now is to give
Sophie some props and we'll take a few
pictures so Sophie are you ready okay
let's see what we can find you
it's not off with this lovely book
okay hold on turn in towards that light
get yourself sorted out take your time I
know it's not in every room
if you've seen my previous videos then
you probably know where this is going to
go because what makes everything better
in a studio is smoke and this scene is
just crying out for a bit of smoke from
my smoke machine now I can't just fill
the area with smoke
you have to backlight smoke so I've got
a third light this is an evolved 200 and
this is going to go right in behind
Sophie
now the power for this is likely to
change as we apply more smoke to the
scene smoke acts like a massive softbox
so it does take away a bit of control so
you have to be ready to adjust your
settings as you're shooting so let's get
Sam in doing smoke duty and let's take
some pictures
bring on the smoke I need just a hint of
smoke just a little bit of smoke right
behind Sophie just a little to your left
well it's no secret that I love using
the smoke machine in my small home
studio but when it comes to Halloween
nothing says creepy like a little bit of
smoke now if you've enjoyed this video
or you've got any questions leave me a
comment below click on the bell icon to
get regular notifications of all the
brand new videos right here on adoramatv
and of course click on that subscribe
button I'm Gavin Hoey thanks for
watching.