Working in Close Quarters ***UPDATE***

One of the reasons I prefer low WS monolights, e.g., 300ws, 500ws, is their practical use in close quarters. Often, I'm working in places where I can't get my lights too far from the model. In fact, the lights are practically on top of them. If I were using high WS monolights, like 1000ws or 1600ws, I wouldn't be able to dial them down enough to be shooting in the exposure ranges I prefer.

I suppose, with high WS lights, layers of diffusion could be used in front of the lights to knock them down but, Jeez! What a PItA that would be!

Sure, there have been times I would have liked to have had more power than my monolights provide. But these times are few and far between, especially when shooting pretty girls. More often than not, I want soft light. Soft light is not what you're going to get when you have to set the lights a good distance from the models: The further the light source, the harder the light. The closer the light source, the softer the light.

The far=hard and close=soft thing is not about how far the light travels from its source to the subject, it's about the size of the aperture of the light source relative to the subject. When you're source is kept in tight, it's aperture is larger (relative to the subject) and, consequently, produces softer light. The further away your source is set, the smaller the aperture will be (relative to the subject) and, as a result, the harder the light. Hard light produces hard shadows. Soft light produces soft shadows. Generally, pretty girls look prettier when soft light illuminates them. This is Lighting 101 stuff but sometimes it's a good reminder for people.

In the BTS shot above, you can see I'm in fairly tight quarters. The room was small and I had to wrangle furniture around to get it out of my way. Those two accent lights, with the shoot-through umbrellas attached, are practically on top of Jennifer. There was no room to move them further away. Since they are 300ws monolights, with variable power output controls, I was able to dial them way down, keep them in close, and not blow out the highlights more than I wanted to or produce hard shadows. Kept in close like that, the light is soft and wraps around Jennifer nicely while still producing the desired highlights.

In the foreground, upper right, you can see a portion of my trusty Larson Reflectasol. I had ample room to keep this main light further from Jennifer. Since the Reflectasol is fairly good size, I could keep it further away and still have it as a pretty good-sized aperture relative to Jennifer. Again, producing soft light which wrapped around her nicely.

BTW, the hot light in the snap, seen to the left of Jennifer, is a Mole-Richardson 1k Tungsten "Baby-Zip" softlight. It isn't producing light that's impacting exposure in any real or meaningful way. (f/8 @ 160th, ISO 100) My strobes are more than over-powering it. But since I was shooting Jennifer in front of that very bright window, I was having trouble focusing.

The modeling light on my key, coupled with the foreground ambient, simply wasn't enough light to focus: Jennifer appeared silhouetted in my viewfinder. I borrowed the Baby-Zip from the on-set lighting crew's grip truck and brought it in simply as a way to light Jennifer up enough to focus. Sometimes those video-production lighting guys and their gear come in handy. If you're wondering where I was shooting from for the usable pics of Jennifer, I mostly kept myself positioned low and just behind and a little to the right of the Baby-Zip. Reason for shooting Jennifer in front of that bright window? Well, A) I was told (by the PM, uhhh... Production Manager) that's where I was to shoot her, i.e., in that small, cluttered room, and B) I kept the drapes open because I thought the pattern created on the floor at her feet was kind of cool.

Isn't it just peachy that the people not involved (or overly concerned or experienced) in the visually-creative aspects of this stuff--you know, like Production Managers--are the ones who so often decide where the visually-creative stuff should take place? Leastwise, in my world that's how if often goes down.

* * * U P D A T E * * *

A reader suggested I post a pic from this set. When I wrote the original update, the pics were still on my laptop--which doesn't have PS loaded on it--and I guess I was being kind'a lazy about moving a file or two to my desktop so I could process and post. So here ya go: One from the set with Jennifer. It definitely makes this "Working in Close Quarters" update more complete. Thanks!