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Varying the lights

cunim

Well-known member
While learning the use of strobes, I like to take a fairly routine object and generate very different views. Occurs to me that all of us have those types of alternative views lying about and I would love to see how people select them.

Topic: Same object, more or less same camera position, different lights with a brief explanation of how you ended up with the preferred view.

Here's my example. Inuit sculpture, attempt at low key image. All shot with Hasselblad 50MP back on AS monolith and Rodenstock 135mm. Exception is last image, which is Sinar P2 8 x 10, FP4+, Sironar S 240mm at f45. Polarizers on lights and lens. Some reflectors.

First image is daylight, more or less straight on. Really boring and poor exposure.
Second image one light, hard and low from below the jaw. Accurate color. Getting there.
Third image two hard lights, left and below jaw, bit of gobo work on eyes. I think this one is probably the most faithful to the artist's intent though color is off a bit.
Fourth image, same lighting as #3. Interesting thing here is that FP4+ required 60 pops to generate a reasonable density range. Bigger problem is you can't mess with gobos and check for subtle effects on the GG. Would need some powerful hot lights to do that. Detail on the neg is amazing.​
 
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cunim

Well-known member
Thanks, Ben. As someone relatively new to lights, it was very instructive for me to see how my subject changed radically as I moved the lights about.

Guess the topic is too vague to be of much interest. Too bad. I would have liked to see how others use light to pull completely different looks out of one subject.
 
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