HOW TO LIGHT PEOPLE

The BJP this week has a feature on how best to light people, cars, paper and animals:

http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=872565

Below is an extract and is copyright BJP.

They say that flash is often the only way to achieve a certain look, feel, or level of control, but that doesn't mean the results have to look uniform. Portrait photographer Richard Ansett says his flash technique is what separates his work from documentary photography, for example, while Satoshi Minakawa uses innovative lighting to add a daring twist to his car shots, and in William Selden's hands lighting helps create subtle yet sophisticated fashion and advertising. These four photographers use flash in highly idiosyncratic ways, defining their styles and achieving their distinctive looks.

Richard Ansett

Richard Ansett is known for his social-documentary approach to commercial work but says his style is defined by 'deliberate use' of flash lighting.

Ansett always carefully manages his light. 'I almost entirely direct a light right-to-left, and use a single soft box,' he says, and adds that he also likes to 'feather-light' his subjects, direct light from a single soft box to just miss the subject. It gives a softer, more natural feel to pictures, and also casts more light onto floors and backgrounds. 'A direct soft box means a lot of light on skin but not much elsewhere,' he explains. 'We've got the flash mounted on a shopping trolley, which means I can direct my assistant to make these minute adjustments until I get it right.'

 

William Selden

For the Jarvis Cocker portrait shown, William Selden put the lights up high to mimic midday sunlight. 'I hate low-angle lighting that tries to recreate evening light,' he says. 'For this shot, I may have half-closed a brolly to soften things up, but I like to avoid fill (flash). I altered the shadows in Photoshop to achieve a softer look.'

He's a big fan of digital capture, which he believes has enabled his lighting style. 'Photography's changed so much in the last 15 years, everyone's huddled around a monitor (on shoots) now,' he says. 'It's more collaborative. There must have been more photos taken in the last 10 years than in the 150 years before, thanks to digital. And I suppose that deadlines are set for digital nowadays -clients want things next-day, the benchmark's for digital.'