Lighting with purpose

One of the most common mistakes I see newer photographers make – and let’s be frank, I see some quote/unquote experienced photographers make the same mistake – is that they do not place their main light with an exacting purpose. Maybe they just always place their key light in the same spot every time out of habit. Or because they saw someone else do it the same way. Which isn’t “horribly” wrong, but it doesn’t lend itself to the creation of compelling portraits.

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Transcript

female announcer: 0:03

Live from MoLight Studios in the heartland of America, it's your Monday morning jolt of hot photography tips with a frothy topping of the latest product news from Godox MoLight. And more. Welcome to the Monday morning cup of Mo with your host, the man who put the MO in MoLight Michael Mowbray.

Michael Mowbray: 0:26

Good morning and welcome to the Monday morning cup of Mo. I'm your host, Michael Mowbray. Each week, I pour a cup of coffee and explore a single topic related to professional photography. So thank you for joining me. This week's topic is lighting with purpose. And maybe I should expand that out to say we should do everything with purpose and photography, background selection, subject placement and composition, light and shadow construction, depth of field and so on and so forth. You can't just point a camera and expect magic to happen though. That's what it seems many people expect, especially if you have a really nice camera. Now, what did I think about that? This really could be a 10 part series, but ya know, maybe I'll end up doing that down the road. So let's just stick to lighting with purpose for this episode. So what's driving this topic? Well, a couple of things. One of the most common mistakes I see newer photographers make and let's be frank, I see some quote unquote experienced photographers make the same mistake is that they do not place their main light with exacting purpose. Maybe they just always place their key light in the same spot every time out of habit, or because they saw someone else do it that same way, which isn't horribly wrong. But it doesn't lend itself to the creation of compelling portraits. When I teach in a mentoring session, or in a workshop, or even what I taught in the classroom at Madison College, I will let the students place their key light on their own. That's when we're first starting off learning lighting, I'd let them plays it on their own. Now, understand that it wasn't a mean trick, and I wasn't trying to hang them out to dry. You know, prior to any demo or anything in the lab, or in the studio. I had taught them about light placement and how to create different lighting patterns and shown lighting diagrams and talked it through, and even demoed it myself a few times by then. And then talked about how lighting patterns and ratios can create different moods and so on. I'll ask the photographer to place their subject and set their key light. Then before they click the shutter, I stop and ask, Why did you put your light there? The most common response I get is deer in the headlights look, they freeze, they look around for help. Again, I don't do this to shame anyone but I do it with a point in mind. If you cannot answer that question, step back and ask yourself, why did I place the light there? And if you can't answer that, you got to do some thinking. Set your light with purpose. Well, that's easy to say, Michael. But how do I do that? Where do I start? No one showed me and that's totally valid. There's a lot of different resources out there that you can see where light placement affects the portrait in different ways. But let's not go there, because that's hard to cover in an audio podcast. What I do want to start with is the why? What does your subject or your customer or your client want the image to say about them? What is the purpose of the photograph? Is it a professional business headshot, a portrait for a dating app, a portrait of a senior athlete or an aging war veteran? A newborn an engaged couple? What is the purpose of the photograph? And along with that, what does the client want the finish portrait to say about them? Do they want to be friendly and happy and approachable? Does does the client want to be serious and dramatic or they look competent, or sad and mournful or loving and connected or playful and fun. There are all kinds of lighting, setups and ways to convey these moods. In addition, you may not have noticed, I'm just pointing this out. But different people look different. There are different face shapes, different eye sizes, different skin textures and tones, different ages. Not everyone looks good in the same kind of light. So light needs to be set with purpose to meet a client's expectations about what they want. The image to say, but also has to be done under the construct of working with light to highlight their unique face and their body shape in order to meet that goal. Of course, some of that requires posing and direction. But the final piece is lighting. For example, if I have an athlete that wants to get a badass portrait that shows off their muscle tone and their fierce competitive spirit, I wouldn't want to use flat or beauty lighting with a smiling face and the two thirds turn of their torso, it's not congruent, it doesn't make sense. All the pieces must be in harmony with each other in order to have compelling portraits that are true to the intent of the subject maker in the viewer. somewhat lost in this conversation so far is what you want. What do you want the image to say? You're the artist. You're the one tasked with creating this image. Otherwise, they could just take a selfie right? What do you want it to say? Is that in harmony with the subject? If not, why not? Do they have unrealistic expectations? Or can they not pull off what they intend? For example, there are super smiley person who can't pull off a serious badass look, but that's what they want you to do. That can be a challenge. As a photographic artist, it's upon you to pull everything together and unite the visions. And sometimes those visions compete with each other. Maybe you see the opportunity for a compelling, dramatic portrait, but that's not what the client asked for. Those visions are at odds with one another, aren't they? So how do you address that? One of the best techniques I have ever learned came from a class I had with Joyce Wilson a long time ago, if you don't know who Joyce Wilson is Googler Joyce Wilson, her philosophy for dealing with competing visions is simple. It's called one for the and one for me. This means I will do what you asked for the please humor me as an artist. And let me also create one for myself. The end result is that often the client will like your more artistic take. And this is all part of putting the you and your photography that I talked about in the last episode. Maybe they will buy both, maybe they will only buy the one that fits their vision. Either way, you got to create both, and got to express yourself as an artist as well. So far, I've been mostly talking about the why for the photograph, but not so much about the how. And again, as I've said, it's a little difficult to do well or fully explained in an audio podcast. But let's give it a go at least from a 10,000 foot level. Creating shape and mood and photography is very much about the creation and use of what shadows, shadows add and mystery. They add depth. They add drama, lack of shadows create flatness and openness. We can use shadows to thin a face, or to hide a double chin or to match a dramatic mood. We can use fill light from a reflector or another flash to lighten those shadows and lessen the drama while still retaining shape and form. If you haven't heard this before, then it's a good thing I get to tell you. Lighting for photography is all about creating shadows. Shadows are our friend. Sometimes we focus too much on where the light is falling and not enough on where it isn't. Shadows are good. Shadows are necessary. You need shadows and a tonal progression from highlight to shadow in order to create the illusion of depth in a two dimensional element like a photograph. master artists paint shadow and highlights to pull the eye around and through an artwork to tell the story and create depth and dimension. We're no different as photographers. Often we are tasked with telling the story of a face wide face you short light to thin it placing the more shadowed side towards the camera. long narrow face. Use broad light to create the illusion of width on the face. Have a bump on one side of the nose like I do from catching a baseball with my face. I wouldn't recommend it for you either. If you've got a bump on the one side of your nose make the bump go away by putting light into it. Make it stand out more by putting light or by putting it on the transition from shadow to highlight. Emphasize cheekbones by using butterfly or Paramount lighting. These are all things you can look up for yourself. I'm going to get into into in great detail on exactly what I mean by short, light, broad, light, butterflied, Paramount all that kind of stuff that's readily available out there. Add tons of drama and mystery by using split light. These are all techniques to learn and know and you can learn these in classes and workshops and books or even online. Although be choosy about where you get your online learning, because any asshole can put a video on YouTube, just like any asshole can have a podcast. Be a discerning consumer and get your info from a qualified asshole. That's your valuable tip of the week. Along with place your light with purpose. Do everything in your photography with a purpose in mind. Here's the latest news from Godox and MoLight. Speaking of lighting with purpose, check out the new XL e x O line of focusing parabolic modifiers from MoLight. These deep parabolics come with a focusing rod that allow you to mount any Bowens mount strobe, then use the adjustable focusing rod to move the light back and forth within the parabolic and this creates different levels of spread and specularity from your light source. It's the type of modifier that you see many fashion and commercial photographers use and that's with good reason. It gives you tremendous control and flexibility when crafting your light. MoLight also includes two layers of diffusion and a grid, allowing you to convert the XL into a more traditional softbox. So that gives you flexibility and options with your lighting all from one modifier. And that's what you get with the XL for MoLight. The Godox M 600 D super high power LEDs are arriving this week at MoLight. So if you've been searching for an LED that is powerful enough to melt your face, look no further. They might even be in stock when you finally get around to listening to this episode, at least we hope so. Thank you again for joining me for a Monday morning cup of Mo please subscribe and follow. I will also be posting more information on the podcast Facebook page, so be sure to follow that as well. And join the Monday morning cup of Mo podcast group where you can ask questions to guest topics and join the rest of the community as we grow this together. Talk to you next week.