Photography. Photo-graphy. Light writing. It makes sense that lighting is what makes or breaks a photograph; it’s right there in the name of the art form. Most of the time, I tend to work with natural light, in the outdoors, only resorting to using flash in very dark situations. However, since photography is “writing with light”, it made sense to try out a new tool: studio lights!
For this shoot, we headed to Raven’s studio in Atlanta. I’d worked with using speedlights (flashes) before, but using Raven’s continuous lights was very helpful to me. I could move the lights around and see, in real time, what angles worked best to flatter the models and create the effects I was going for.
One thing I noticed was that lighting men and women was very different; I tend to prefer even, soft lighting for women, while more shadowy, dramatic light was more appropriate for our male model.
It was fun to play around with a combination of different light sources and notice the very different effects you could get by just altering your light slightly. Adding artificial light opens up a whole new range of possibilities!
I had a lot of fun at this workshop, and I’m certainly hoping to save up for some studio lights… and a studio, eventually.
But for now, I can still take what I’ve learned and apply it with the equipment that I do have more effectively.
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