The Down & Dirty
This location, over 2 years ago, was where we took one of our first award winning photographs that would unknowingly be 1 of only 15 photos — out of nearly 30,000 photos worldwide — to be displayed at the Photoshop & You event in San Francisco, California. Now, not to take anything away from our first photo because we were honored to have our work displayed by Adobe, but it has been over 2 years now and we knew that we had to give the same concept another run just to see what we could do to push it over the top. Needless to say, the results were unparalleled.
Our Setup
Here at Lenz Photography, we’re always experimenting with new lighting and other techniques to push our sessions to the next level to keep things interesting on a creative level. As you can see in the behind the scenes video above, we used a 3 light setup for these shots —
- (1) Main Light – Minimal diffusion, High above the subject, Angled slightly downward to fill in the drum set and create some shadows under the eyebrows, nose, and chin for contrast and depth.
- (1) Fill Light (large silver reflector) – Placed on the ground angled upward adding some fill from below the subject, softed shadows and prevented lighting that was “too contrasty” to work with in post.
- (2) Edge Lights – No diffusion, Added separation from the background, Added grit, & froze the water in motion.
- Note – (We were experimenting with a 4 light set up at one point but scrapped the 4th light due to the drain on our power supply.)
The Results
Now that you’ve seen the video and read our explanation of how it was shot, scroll down and tell us how much more interesting these photos are compared to the one from 2 years ago. It’s all about the lighting, baby!
(Photo above from June 2011)
Click a photo to view the entire behind the scenes gallery below.
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