Special Lighting Setups

Special Lighting Setups

by William Lulow

There are times when studio photographers need to make use of some specialized kinds of lighting. A set designed for a unique photograph or a product that requires a special lighting could be a reason to employ some interesting lighting. Here is one example:

A large hotel lobby that had to be lit to show off its unique design. Five lights were used to highlight not just the furniture and the flowers, but a light was also placed behind the reception desk to add a sense of depth and record it as a highlight with the white walls. If it wasn’t lit, it would have been almost completely dark.

Or, adding light from behind a set:

Here, a black background with holes punched in it plus a cross-hatch filter provided the “star effect.” Also, the main light had to be prevented from hitting the background so a side light, with a gobo to block the background and direct the light only to the subject, was used. Also, a fill-in, white card was placed (camera right) to lighten the shadows created by the main light.

Or a specialized lighting to reveal certain details in a product shot:

In this image a CROSS LIGHT was used, but this time the lighting was produced by two light banks (softboxes). This type of light creates a shadow down the middle of the subject, perfect for showing the bulbs’ filaments. And the elongated highlights produced by two rectangular softboxes added just the right touch.

Whenever you need to shoot a product or something like glassware, you need to use softboxes. Notice the way the highlights appear on the glasses. This is the look that you need for most still life shots:

This shot was made for a catalog featuring glassware. Using an umbrella as a soft light would have left ugly, round reflections on the glasses. The white, circular highlight on the plexiglass grid background was made with a large, round light on a boom over the back of the set. It was positioned using the lighting formula (“angle of incidence = angle of reflection”), a very handy scientific fact to be aware of when doing any kind of photography. This was a specialized application of these various lighting techniques.

Another trick photographers use employs “gobos” (black reflector cards that block light from reaching areas in a set that should not be lit). Here you can see them being used to block light from reaching the camera:

They are the two black cards on either side of the background in this shot. They were also employed doing shots like this one:

For images like this, gobos were used to make sure that no light reached the camera and all the highlights registered on the subject itself.

Softboxes are the best lights to use for almost any kind of product shot. Here’s a setup I did on location for a drug company:

A soft light from the top provides just the right amount of even light to make even small bottles shine. Here is the finished image:

This is not an advertisement, but it served the purpose of showing what these small vials were on a plain background.

Another specialized lighting technique I have employed is actually OVERLOADING the background with light. It is accomplished by having two lights illuminating the background, but set at least two f/stops brighter than the main light. When the background has too much light, much of it spills over onto the subject creating a kind of “flare.” Here is an example:

This is not a lighting I use frequently, of course, but I kind of discovered it while experimenting with lighting the background for other shots. I also added a vaseline filter over the lens to soften the effect even more, but you can see how the light just seems to creep out from behind the background. The basic rule here is that backgrounds should always be lit separately from the main subject if you want them to register a certain color or have appropriate detail visible.

I have mentioned several techniques for lighting setups that are a bit out of the ordinary. Most of my work these days consists of regular, studio portraits for social media or companies’ websites so there is little chance for experimentation. But when I was learning about studio lighting, the opportunities were endless. I would often make deals with some of my models to do some “testing shots”, what now may be referred to as “TFP” (testing for prints) where a model would pose for pictures in exchange for getting images for their portfolios or on-line presentations. Those shots were the ones where I really learned the most about what light can do.

Anyone who wants to learn about studio lighting, which, by the way, influences everything that light does in our universe, is well advised to secure the willing participation of a person to photograph, sometimes better known as a muse!