Topics Covered:
- The Office Snapshot
- Conception and Set Up
- One Light
- Two Edge Lights
- One Edge, One Fill
- Three Lights
Camera/Media
- Olympus E-5
- Olympus Zuiko 50mm f/3.5
- Olympus Zuiko 35mm f/3.5
- Olympus Zuiko 14-60mm f/2.8-5.6
Lighting Equipment
- HalfDome® nxt: small
- LitePanel accessory - Legs
- LitePanel fabric: 39x72 inch Translucent
- LitePanel fabric: 39x72 inch White/Black
- LitePanel frame: 39x72 inch Aluminum
- StarLite® OctoDome® nxt: extra small deluxe kit
- StarLite® QL
- StarLite®: medium digital kit
The Office Snapshot Jaron Schneider, my assistant and friend, happens to be an avid gardener and likes to grow fruits and vegetables that are otherwise hard to find. Recently, he brought to work something he grew in his backyard, which is one of the strangest fruits I have ever seen: a Buddha's hand. This bizarre citrus, though a little burnt from the recent cold weather, got a lot of attention around the office, and one person even took a picture of it with his cell phone to show his wife. [figure 1] That got me thinking. This would be an excellent subject for an unusual photo shoot. I told Jaron about it and we decided to put together a special setup to really make this fruit stand out. We wanted to take a picture we could print and frame and not just settle for a low resolution, unlit cell phone shot. |
Figure 1 |
Conception and Setup |
We purchased a water heater basin (used to collect water if a heater ruptures or breaks) as well as the associated PVC nozzle to make the unit as water tight as possible. We brought the parts, along with some matte black spray paint, back to Photoflex® headquarters and set up outside where we wouldn't get paint on anything. [figure 2] |
Once the PVC nozzle was securely attached, we sprayed the whole basin with two layers of the spray paint. This would ensure that the basin would be as matte black as possible. [figure 3] |
Figure 3 |
In our first lighting setup, we used three lights. We took three StarLite® QL continuous lights, an extra small OctoDome® nxt, a small HalfDome® nxt, and a medium SilverDome®, each with a 500 watt tungsten bulb, and arranged them around the Buddha's Hand. Here's the basic arrangement. [figure 5] Though we set them all up, we weren't sure which combination of lights would have the best look, so we started by turning them on one at a time. |
Figure 5 |
We chose not to put the diffusion faces on any of the soft boxes, but rather just go with the interior baffle on the OctoDome® (positioned toward the front of the the box where the face would normally attach) and the SilverDome® and no diffusion at all on the HalfDome®. We used the HalfDome® with no diffusion at all because we wanted a hard-edged quality of light to render texture and to help separate the fruit from the background. The other two soft boxes, with their interior baffles attached, would provide a mixture of hard light from the silver interior and soft light through the baffle. |
Figure 7 |
Figure 8 |
Though it had a dark and spooky feel to it, we agreed it was hard to tell exactly what the viewer was looking at. We needed more light and a different angle. |
Two Edge Lights |
Figure 9 |
Figure 10 |
For this shot [figure 11], I used a 12-60mm f/2.8 lens and shot with my camera set to:
|
Figure 11 |
I then switched to a 50mm f/3.5 macro lens and shot with the following camera settings [figure 12]:
|
Figure 12 |
As you can see, the light in these results is dramatic enough to draw significant visual interest, but not so ambiguous as to not be able to tell what it is. Also note that we were able to capture the reflection of the citrus in the water, which gave us the beautiful mirror effect we were envisioning when we conceived this shot. |
Figure 14 |
For these shots, I switched back my 35mm macro lens and had my camera set to the following:
|
Figure 15 |
Figure 16 |
In figure 15, you can really make out the beautiful texture of the fruit. The mix of hard and soft light creates little shadows along the bumps in Buddha's hand, which is why we can see the texture so well. In figure 16, the full shape of the citrus is visible along with the texture, which looks great standing out from the black water. Three Lights |
Figure 19 |
In this shot, notice how water reflects the gradient of light projected onto the Translucent LitePanel. [figure 20]
|
Figure 20 |
Just out of curiosity, we switched off our HalfDome® edge light and snapped another image [figures 21 & 22] at:
|
Figure 21 |
Figure 22 |
As you can see from this lesson, one lighting arrangement and a few camera angles can allow you to capture a large variance of moods and tones for your images. Any one of the images we managed to get could have its commercial uses, and we owe that to our lighting design. Don't be afraid to try something new. Take the ordinary and chuck it out the window! Photographed by David Cross Assisted by Jaron Schneider Written by David Cross and Jaron Schneider Graphics and edits by Ben Clay |