The Photographic Umbrella III

The Photographic Umbrella III

By William Lulow

The light I use most for portraits is my custom-made photographic umbrella. When I describe how light behaves when photographing a human being, it’s important to note the characteristics of this lighting tool.

Many people have seen photographic umbrellas, but just as many don’t really know why they are used.  In a previous article, I referred to a small, on-camera flash as a “point light source.”  It creates harsh shadows and very specular light. This type of light is not conducive to producing soft, wrap-around type lighting effects. One of the reasons for this is that lights that are built in to cameras are quite small when compared to almost anything they are used to photograph. Therefore, photographers for many years have  searched for ways to make their lights bigger. They used theatrical Klieg lights and otherwise manufactured large lights because they knew that that’s the way to get soft lighting effects. Finally, they turned to using photographic umbrellas to get the soft effects they were after because they are more easily portable than the huge, theatrical lights and they could be made in larger sizes.

The basic lighting principle at work here is: the larger the light compared to the size of the subject, the softer the lighting effect!

Umbrellas work well because they do several things at once:

• They make the light source much bigger than on-camera flash
• They soften the effect of the light because it has to travel a further distance to the subject (flash heads are “bounced” into the umbrella)
• The light itself, is quite large compared to the size of a human face
• Umbrellas fold up to an easily transportable size

Using an umbrella also means that the light source is not attached to the camera.  This creates different effects because the light can be placed at various positions, not on the same axis as the camera.

This is a photographic umbrella. Note that it has a satin inside and a black outside. The black part keeps the light focused on the subject. Some photographic umbrellas are made from a translucent material that lets light through it. This actually defeats the purpose of the umbrella. It can be used as a “diffuser” to spread the light over a larger area, but light really doesn’t “bounce” off of it and as a light source, it is really just about the same size as the light inside it.

The whole idea of a large photographic umbrella is to make the light source itself as large as possible.

Over the years, photographers realized that in order to make the output of a light as soft as possible for effective lighting of people, the light had to be very large compared to the size of a person. I worked with several photographers when I was beginning my career as a studio photographer, who used very large light banks when they photographed models for fashion catalogs like JC Penney, for example. Some of these lights looked like this:

These were “softboxes” that were often more than six feet high and roughly four feet wide. They were designed to be about the size of a normal human being. They provided an even, soft light because the light “head” (or heads) placed inside them were diffused by the white, translucent material in the front of the box and aimed by the black material surrounding it. This was a fairly effective means of creating a nice, soft lighting. But, they were often cumbersome and not that easy to use. In fact, one photographer I worked with had a really large, metal softbox into which he placed about eight flash heads, each one attached to a flash generator or “power pack,” which it was my job to watch. I had to make sure that each of the flash heads fired for each exposure. If one did not fire properly, the exposure would be diminished just enough to underexpose the entire piece of film, thus rendering the picture the tiniest bit too dark. So, this piece of lighting equipment, although correct in its usage, was really difficult to operate, especially for a single photographer who had no one around to help keep an eye on this stuff.

Photographic umbrellas, on the other hand, usually take only one flash head, can be collapsed to a size that is easy to carry and are fairly durable. (The one I used has lasted me for over thirty years and just in the last few years finally needed to be replaced).

So, good photographic umbrellas, designed to soften the effect of the light should have a black backing and a satin interior. And, as I have noted, need to be as large as possible to obtain truly soft results. When a photographer does a portrait and uses a “main light,” (that’s the light that provides the basic lighting for a portrait), that light is always reflected in a person’s eyes. The reflection is called a “catchlight.” If this reflection is distracting it detracts from the overall quality of the picture. It will always be noticeable because it will reproduce as bright white. In any picture, things that are white tend to jump out at us as viewers and things that are dark will recede and not be as noticeable.

The other big difference between using a large umbrella and a large softbox is that the former provides a kind of “wrap around” lighting effect due to the curved nature of the umbrella. The softbox is only a means of directing soft light where you want it. The light rays from the softbox tend to be directional in nature and not create light that goes all around the subject.

Here is a picture of the umbrella I use:

First, notice how round it is. Second, notice the size. That’s my old studio’s ceiling in the picture. My current space has 20-foot ceilings. The umbrella is actually 65 inches in diameter. So, compared to the human face, it is several times larger. Here, you can also see the old flash head I used to use with it. The light has several wires that can be connected to four different flash tubes within the head itself. So, theoretically I can have four flash generators each connected to a flash tube, being pumped into the umbrella to increase the light output, if I needed to. (And I have needed the extra light on several occasions). I have since switched to a less powerful light source because today’s digital sensors are much more sensitive to light and consequently don’t require large amounts of power. Here is the one I use now:

There is a third characteristic to notice as well. The fact that this umbrella has sixteen ribs instead of eight. So, its round quality means that it will produce a very large, wrap-around type of lighting on my subjects. It also means that the “catchlights” in my subjects’ eyes will be round instead of showing the scalloping features of smaller umbrellas with less ribs.

Here is an example:

This is a recent portrait shot with my large, soft umbrella. You can see the catchlights in her eyes. The top one is the umbrella and the smaller one is a lightbox which I use as a fill-in light to lighten the very slight shadows created by the umbrella. I am always looking for definition in skin tone, but without any really distinct shadows. Notice how soft the overall effect is and how translucent the skin tone is. That is the effect I’m looking for in just about all my portraits of women.

Now, without the addition of any fill-in light, the light is still soft, but with a few shadows. Here is an example:

Here, you can notice that the picture has no fill-in light. Therefore, the neck is darker and there is a slight shadow under the nose. But the overall effect of the light is still soft and even. Men can usually take a lighting without a fill-in, because their skin is harsher with more wrinkles. Those qualities make men look more masculine but wouldn’t be as flattering for women.

The take-away for this article is that the photographic umbrella is a great tool for the portrait photographer. It will provide very soft light, if it is large enough, but you have to have the room in which to use it and you need to know how it works to provide round, soft, large light for your portraits.