How to Set Up Photography Studio Lighting

Video Transcript

"Hello, I'm Alex Compton with Luminescence Photography in Pahrump, Nevada. In this segment we're going to be discussing one method of setting up your lighting in your studio for portrait work. We want to start with a main light, in this case I'm using a strobe light with the reflective umbrella inside. I'm also going to be using a back light. In this case I've set it up behind this chair and I've put a colored floodlight in here, this is just a typical floodlight you can buy at a hardware store, you don't have to get anything fancy unless you really want to. And I've got a boom light coming down as a hair light. We're using a backdrop, a black backdrop in this case, to keep all the light on the model. Even though you do have the back and it is a mat finish, it is, however, subject to getting shadows cast on it just because of the nature of the light. So you want to be careful in the direction that you're setting up your lights that you're not going to get conflicting shadows coming across and they're not going to fall into the view of your picture unless you want it there. Now we also have, over here, in this case I've set it up high because it's very strong, this particular diffuser light does not have the adjustments in order to tone it way down, but this is designed to work as a fill light. So even though it's a very soft light in general, I still am bouncing it off the ceiling to make it even a softer light onto our model. And you will have to take a few trial shots just to make sure that the lighting is there. We want you to notice how we have the hair light coming down, how it's reflecting softly and giving her hair a little glow, and the red light coming from up above also does a little accent with the red hair so it really brings it out nicely. We're going to angle our model just slightly to one side or the other, it really doesn't matter. She's got a beautiful smile going for us. Make sure whenever you have your camera set that you have your camera speed adjusted so that it will work off the lights depending on your camera whether you have a wireless remote. In this case I do have to have it here but the other light is a digital slave so as soon as I pose and position my picture, you get your camera set, and...(click)"