I always love going into a shoot with a plan! Even if the end result doesn’t end up exactly as originally planned. I’ll be honest, that happens quite a lot, but that’s also the nature of true collaboration. Regardless of whether or not the photos ended up exactly like the mood board or not, I had a great shoot yesterday with my friend Brey and Mallory.
I also had the privilege of using the new LINK 800 from Paul C. Buff and got to try out their new magnetic gel caps. To say I’m excited about these gel caps would be an understatement, but I’m still a big fan of the LiteMod gel system which is what I used as my rim lights for this shot. The key light was a LINK along with a blue gel cap in a silver beauty dish.
My overall setup for this shot was pretty simple, with just 3 lights. As I mentioned above, my rim lights were 2 Digibees with red gels. They were just about even with the edges of my black v-flat that I was using as my background.
For my key light, I used a gridded, silver beauty dish with a blue gel cap and a LINK 800 from Paul C. Buff. One thing that makes the new gel caps really cool is that I can use them with any modifier and I just have to snap it in to place. No more tape, rubber bands or other unconventional way of holding the gels into place.
Check out this 3D flyover I made with set.a.light 3D and keep on scrolling to see the final image and exif data.
You may notice that the final image has soft edges and a little bit of lens flare. I chose to go with this effect because I felt that it drew the viewers eyes into Brey, which is the main focal point of the image. To create this effect, I just used a plastic sandwich bag and ripped a hole in it so the edges were blurred out and the center of the frame remained the same.
If you want to see more behind the scenes breakdowns, head over to my Instagram and YouTube so you don't miss anything, and also download my FREE Lighting Guide here!
If you want to take your photography to the NEXT LEVEL, join me for my next workshop March 14th, 2020 at my studio here in Franklin, TN.
I hope to see you there!
-Jeff Carpenter