eBay: It's Photography That Sells
- by Peter Lerman (copyright 2010)
Lighting variations... (continued)
To photograph Tinkerbell I moved the soft box into position directly above the subject. To do this you need something called a 'boom'. It attaches to light stand and extends horizontally. Take a look at these devices on various vendors' websites or on eBay. You might be able to make your own if you are clever and good with tools.
The soft box is now above my subject facing straight down. The front surface of it is only about a foot over little Tinkerbell's head. She is centered under it left to right and front to back. If you like, she could be closer to the back edge of the light than the front. Try it.
The light source is so big that even though you can tell the light is coming from above, it essentially fills in its own shadows. Since the light is pointing down it does not illuminate the background as much as it did before, when it was pointing 'out'. The background gets darker (less light) in the distance. I love this light for many subjects because it is very soft but still just directional enough to give dimension and contour to the subject.
A small mirror or white card placed in front of the item, below the camera lens, lets you kick some little extra light into the front of your subject. I like the way that looks, too. I also like the light from the soft box falling off in the distance giving the back drop that 'light-to-dark' look and a sense of depth with no hard lines or distractions.
For the shot of the lens, the lighting setup is similar to Tinkerbell's, above. It is still on the same white Formica background with the light on a boom above it. I have used a black curtain to block most of the light from the soft box from falling onto the background, behind my subject. This makes the background very dark.
Then, I lit the dark part of the background with another light that had a blue 'gel' (filter) placed over the light. I had to be careful that the blue light did not fall onto the lens. This is how you can work with just the one white surface and give the look of different colors as it suits you and your subject.
There are many other tricky lighting challenges that I can cover in the future: crystal glassware, shiny silver, tiny objects, etc. Stay tuned.
I wil next demonstrate for you why the expensive cameras are nice but not essential.
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