Better Event Photography

Better Event Photography

By William Lulow

Last month I published an article about corporate event photography. I mentioned how my training as a studio lighting expert has helped me create some more interesting event images over the years. As I stated, I am always looking for ways to make rather mundane kinds of shots much more visually compelling and it can be accomplished with the use of some multiple light setups.  When you are shooting in a strange location, you still have control of your lighting but lights must be movable given that you are not always shooting against the same background.

Photographers who shoot with large budgets for companies, magazines or advertising agencies can afford to hire several assistants who can make this kind of assignment much easier because they can hold your lights for you. You can do away with light stands. But you still have to know what you are doing regarding your portable lights, where to position them for best effect, how strong each light should be and how to set up “gobos” (either human, or stationary) to block any unwanted light from reaching the lens. (Although I have been noticing that the lens coatings on the current crop of digital lenses available on the market are way better than they used to be, so often, when the light source is included in the photograph, it doesn’t really ruin the image the way it used to). Here is one example:

This was an obvious mistake made in the haste of shooting and wanting to capture the kids’ enthusiasm, but notice that the light really doesn’t destroy much of the image itself. With less sophisticated lenses, the flare might have just been enough to wipe out most of the detail. I could even retouch this picture to eliminate the light source altogether, but the rest of it wasn’t particularly interesting.

However, many working professional photographers don’t always have huge budgets and often have to do these shoots by themselves. But we still need to be able to add the interesting lighting to whatever we shoot.

I have a portable lighting kit which is super easy to carry around by myself, if I need to:

First, I have a small case on wheels that carries two portable lights with two lithium-ion rechargeable batteries, cords and other necessary items to attach them to two light stands which I carry as well. I then have my backpack which carries my cameras, lenses, accessories with another flash which I mount on my camera. The light on the camera is just so I can make sure that anything in front of me will be lit, even if the other lights don’t flash or they are aimed at different places. Then of course, all lights are connected with Pocket Wizard radios. This kind of set up allows me to use one light to light up the background, another to add an accent light to the subject and the “main light” on the camera to provide the basic illumination. So I have changed a “flash-on-camera” kind of job to one which utilizes three lights. Each light is on a super light but sturdy light stand that becomes easily movable if I don’t have anyone helping me. This kind of setup also permits me to get shots where the foreground is in shadow, thus adding some depth to the image. Here is an example of that:

This image was obtained with one light aimed at the subjects and the light on the camera turned off.

Here are more multiple light, location event images from this shoot:

The great thing about portable lights is that they don’t need any cords. They are completely movable wherever your shoot may be. You just have to know where and how to set them up. The light I have on the camera is bounced into a white, satin reflector. This ensures that it will always be about one stop darker than the other lights which are used raw and on half or quarter-power. This means that any highlights from them will automatically register as white, giving some really nice depth to the pictures. Here is yet another example:

In this shot, the light happened to be in the frame as well and could have been cropped out. But look at the highlights on the girls’ hair. This is the kind of image that can be produced with several, external lights.

The point is, that creative lighting makes the shots, which might only be just snapshots, look far more interesting.