Portraits of Haylie

Portraits of Haylie

by William Lulow

I love to shoot portraits of kids and especially my granddaughter, Haylie! She loves to clown around on the white no-seam paper. Her mother dresses her in great outfits. But now, she is almost 2 1/2 years old! Shooting portraits and other full-length shots are now a bit more complicated than they used to be. When she was very little, I could get away with setting her down on the background paper and lighting her with just my big umbrella. 

I could sometimes get away with some minor retouching if I wanted the background to be all white. But as she has grown, I now need to light the background separately, as one should with just about any background. I have always taught that each light you use in a lighting setup has, or should have, its separate job to do. So, you can’t always get away with having your main light do two jobs! It can’t light your subject and your background at the same time. The reason for this is that light travels only so far, and then it begins to fall off with distance. So, an object four feet away from your light will receive only half as much light as one that is only two feet away. 

This is why, for most practical purposes, backgrounds need to be lit separately from subjects. So, when I shoot Haylie from now on, I’m going to have to use a set up similar to this:

My daughter has limited space in her house, but I was able to set up a small roll of white, no seam paper, two umbrellas to light the background and my main, large umbrella to light Haylie. Here is the result:

You have to have a setup like this if you are going to shoot any full-length images. As children get bigger (and with adults), it’s often fairly easy to light the background with one light placed behind the subject. Here is an example:

This setup has five lights being used. Two accent lights, one background light, a main light and a fill-in light. The subject can sit on the stool or on a box and the background light can be hidden behind her. 

So, remember that each light has a separate job to do and really shouldn’t be called upon to do more than that.