Lighting Lifestyle Stock Photos! With the Joel.

Joel Barhamand

Minimalightist

Having
worked as a lighting assistant for over six dozen photographers, I have
seen enough lighting set-ups it makes my mind melt.  I have worked with
some of the best photographers and assistants, the biggest crews and by
myself, worked out of one shoulder bag and out of cube trucks packed to
the ceiling, in a studio and on location. However, I am a minimalist at
heart.  A great picture can be made using the sun, your 35mm flash, or
a simple two light kit.  I hope that I can share with you some
knowledge I have gained and some tips and tricks to help make your next
shoot a more freeing experience. One where you’re not worrying about
intricate lighting set-ups and are instead able to concentrate on
getting your next great shot.

Photo School (you can ignore this if you went to one):

Before we can dive into lighting examples we have to talk about a few
basic concepts behind lighting. 

Ratios:
The secret to successful and repeatable
lighting is in the ratios.  When you understand lighting ratios you can
recreate nearly anything you see in a magazine, or repeat your own
successful set-ups.


Lighting ratios are always expressed in regards to the key light (main
light source) as it relates to the fill or shadow areas.  When you
double a ratio you are adding a one-stop change between the highlights
and shadows.  So a 1:1 ratio means the shadows are completely filled
with light and are the same exposure as the key light side.  A 2:1
ratio means the shadow side is one stop darker than your key light
(half as bright to your eye balls, which if you don’t have a light
meter
can be trained to guesstimate).  A 4:1 ratio would mean there is a two
stop difference (four times darker to your eyeballs), 8:1 would be a
three stop difference (eight times darker) etc. etc. etc. 

For
those that have never used a light meter whether that be built in to
your camera or hand held, I would encourage you to invest in one or at
the very least start paying attention to your cameras. 

Light Sources, color:
When it comes to lighting, consistency is key.  All light sources have different temperatures, which will all register as different colors on your camera.  This is why your digital camera has a different setting for daylight, shady spots, incandescent lighting, fluorescent lighting, etc.  Keep your camera on daylight (5000 degrees Kelvin to 6000K) and take pictures indoors under standard tungsten light bulbs (2800K to 3400K) and you’ll notice everything goes orange.  Shoot under fluorescent lighting and everything will go green. Again every light source, is different.  For the best results you should always try and set your camera to the dominant source either through proper film choices or temperature/lighting settings on your digital camera.  The best thing you can do is pick a type of lighting, and stick with it.  Lucky for everyone, strobes are daylight balanced (usually between 5500K and 6000K) and thus mix well. 

Light Sources, size/distance:
The next thing to consider about your light source is the size of the source.  The bigger the light source (as it relates to your subject) the softer the light, a diffused look which will have a more manageable gradation from the highlights to the shadows.  The smaller the source, the harder the light which will have distinguished shadows with crisp hard edges.

The best way to illustrate this is to think of the sun at different times of the day.  When the sun is largest (lowest) in the sky (early morning and late evening), shadows are soft and diffused, however when the sun is smallest (highest) in the sky (noon time), hard shadows prevail [Jim Hunter points out that in the case of the sun, the apparent change in size is actually an optical illusion. “The change from soft light to hard light is simply a matter of the light at sunrise or sunset having to travel through more of the atmosphere and thus becoming more diffused than when the sun is more directly overhead and the light traveling through less atmosphere.”].  This is why when you use a teeny on-camera flash you get those really hard shadows and highlights.  One easy way to increase the size (and power) of a light source is to just move it closer to the subject, it doubles in size every time you halve the distance. So, a light that is twenty feet away, becomes one stop brighter and doubles in size (in relation to the subject) when you move it to ten feet from the subject, becomes two stops brighter and four times larger in relation when you move it to five feet and so on.

Further Reading:
I highly recommend Barbara London, John Upton, and Jim Stone’s photo-school staple, the cleverly titled Photography.  It is now in it’s 9th edition, but for learning everything you need to know about the basics (and well beyond) of photography, I would recommend any edition after the 5th (save yourself a bundle of money and buy used).

If you are less of a page turner and more of a mouse clicker, I think your best bet is to head over to Digital Photography School and mine the vaults.

Lifestyle:

O.K. Let’s look at lighting for lifestyle photography and some easy ways to achieve that light and airy look. Lifestyle is all about looking natural and is easy to over light. Just remember to keep it bright and spacious, let one large light source do the work and create an environment for that light to bounce around naturally and you can achieve this look using just the sun. One way to make something feel light is to show the light. Not the light source mind you, nobody wants to see the flash bulb or a blown out sun, but we want to see a lot of highlights and a nice bright background and that means back and side lighting.

Let’s take for example a classic lifestyle shot, the backyard barbecue. Let’s use the sun as our key light source, we’ll wait until a nice hour, ideally between 9-11AM or 3-5PM the light will be large, bright, soft, and a little on the warm side.  I just happen to have a diagram of just such a scenario.

In the illustration we can see the sun behind and to the right which will provide a nice semi-back lit situation with light wrapping around your subjects, providing a warm glow around their entire bodies and halo in their hair (helping to make you “feel” the light).  Now to avoid their faces and other important bits going too dark we need some fill light.  Let’s go for a 2:1 ratio which will keep the shadows well filled but still appear bright and natural.  By utilizing your surroundings you can do yourself a solid, in this case we have positioned them close to their house which will bounce light back into the picture and essentially be an enormous reflector.

Word of caution!

Whatever the color your reflector, so will be the color of the light. I would not use a green house as a bounce, luckily these three guys live in a white aluminum sided house. Perfect!  For that extra kick of light we have put a piece of white card* in to reflect back onto their faces (easy does it, a little fill goes a long way, shadows are good, we just want to clearly identify their facial features, not bathe them in light). 

*I recommend using white fill whenever possible.  Most reflector cards or bounce products come in three finishes white, silver and gold.  Gold is great when you want a nice warm look, and silver is great when you want a really nice hard kick, but in my opinion, both are best used sparingly and at a distance as they really pump out the light.  White will reflect back the same color that is being bounced into it which will always look more natural.

 
Here are two beautiful examples by Marili Forastieri of using the sun to back light and a small bounce card as a fill light. Look at how happy this girl is to be back lit! 

photo by Marili Forastieri

In this case we are looking at a 2:1 ratio which reads well as a mid afternoon diffused light look.  If you wanted something a bit more dramatic, say an end of day look we’d want to go for a 4:1 ratio, which would keep the shadows readable but add some drama.

I talked to Marili about how she goes about lighting a lifestyle image and she had some good advice for all.  “Pay attention to light in all different situations, lifestyle images are all about real life, so take your cues from available light.  Use what’s available whenever possible, sometimes you just need to boost what’s there.”  Often times when on location, we will light through windows or put a white fabric or sheer silk over them and bounce a strobe right in to the window giving the same shape and position as the available light.  “Front light is hard because it just takes over and doesn’t feel real, you have to watch, create your excitement from the back and from the front just fill in to where it looks natural.”

What about indoors?

Looking at another one of Marili’s pictures we see a beautiful smiling girl eating a slice of watermelon.  Delicious lifestyle lighting!  This is all back light, check out her shiny cheek bones.  Having lit many a picture for Marili, I can bet you there were four V-Flats building a “room” around the model, the back two had strobes being bounced INTO the corner of them, spilling a bright bounced back light and wrapping around the model.  The front two simply reflect back the light from the back lights creating a nice bright picture where the background blows-out white Contrary to what’s often preached, it’s OK to blow out white sometimes, but we don’t want to over do it. There is a big difference between blown out white and white with some detail, make sure you watch your histogram if you are shooting digital, or just try and keep the back light about 2-3 stops brighter than the subject and you’ll be fine.

photo by Marili Forastieri

TIP: If you want a more dramatic lighting set up, try removing the front v-flats and replacing them with one large white reflector or for even more contrast, try facing the black side to the subject. Negative fill, as it’s commonly referred to can lend that extra realism to an image by adding shadows to an overly lit situation.

No strobes? Let’s see what we can do to create a picture like Marili’s using just the sun.

We want windows, a sliding glass door, or a set of two or three windows is ideal, a corner with windows on both walls is even better.  Let’s go back to our illustration.  Here we see a man eating something that resembles a star, but in real life this could be anything, he doesn’t even need to be eating, that’s probably better in fact.  ANYWAYS. We position him far enough away from the windows where the direct sunlight is not hitting him but there is a lot of spill going on in the room (ideally an all white room, you have one of those right?).  We want this light to wrap around him creating a nice soft diffused light from behind that grows in intensity as it circles around his body and then gradually falls off as it nears the front of his face.  In the business, we use large 4ft. by 8ft. foam core structures called v-flats to bounce light, essentially a movable reflective wall.  In this image we have placed the V so the the center is facing into the corner and the light from both windowed walls can wrap gently around to the front of his body filling in the shadows just a touch so that he is not completely shadowed. 





Project: V-Flat
 Building your own V-flat is an affordable project that’s only major difficulty is transportation from the store to your house, I brought mine home on the subway so no excuses from all you car driving people.  Buy two 4′ x 8′ (48″x 96″) foam core boards (1/2″ thick is preferable, but 1/4″ will do), white on one side, black on the other (all white will work if it’s all you can find).  You can find these sold in individual sheets at art supply stores, like Dick Blick (you are going to want to go to the store and not buy these on the internet as they come in boxes of 25 and have to be shipped via freight truck).  Now lay them on the ground white side up with a 1/2  inch gap between them.  Run a single strip of white gaffers tape from one end to the other, trim off any excess.  Flip over to the black side and do the same, this time using a single strip of black gaffers tape.  Congratulations, you’ve just built yourself a large adjustable V, the possibilities are endless.  Build five of these and you have a portable studio apartment.

TIP: Take a trip to the Fabric Store
A lot of photo equipment can be reproduced on the cheap, especially light modifiers.  A bag of silks is one of the cheapest, lightest, and most useful things you can add to your kit.  Head to the fabric store, try and find sheer white fabrics (remember if they aren’t white they will change the color of the light, not necessarily bad, but something to consider). Hold them up to the light, try and find three different opacity’s, the goal is to soften anything from harsh direct sunlight or to just bring down the light so it’s not blowing out.  Buy at least enough to cover two windows each.  With a little gaffers tape, you can now use these soften everything from professional strobes to a window (ALWAYS BE CAREFUL OF FLAMMABLE FABRICS). While you are at the fabric store pick up some black Duvetine, or black velvet to black out windows or provide negative fill.

Want to take it a step further?  Build yourself a PVC pipe frame the size of your fabric.  Add some grommets to the corners and middle of each side of the silks.  Now add a shoelace to each to tie them to the frame and you have yourself a Scrim.  The finished product can be used as a reflector, a light modifier, or even a portable wall. There are a million ways you could make this, and it’ll all pack down into a small, light bag.

Just to really turn up the inspiration, I’ve included some examples by some of the best lifestyle photographers in the business: