GETTING THE
LOOK IN CAMERA
TECHNIQUES TO LIGHT YOUR FRAME
by John GressLIGHTING TUTORIALTHE GOODS
42 PPMAG.COMIMAGES ©JOHN GRESSu I believe the most important thing we
can do in studio—after being creative—is
to get it right in camera. I’ve tried all kinds
of Photoshop tricks, but for me nothing
beats a properly lit frame. So let’s work on
putting light where you want it, blocking
it from where you don’t, and bouncing it
where you need it.BOUNCE
Even with the softest modi er possible, a
single light source is going to give you 100%
black shadows. By bouncing light back
from the other side with a V- at or any-
thing white, you can lessen those shadows
and capture your camera’s full dynamic
range. If your bounce is too close, however,
your image will be at and lack contrast.
I often use a V- at or white foam core on one
side of my set and a large octabox on the
other. In general, I want the light meter read-
ing on the side of the subject’s face that’s
lit by the octabox to match my camera’s ex-
posure, and the side nearest the V- at to
measure two stops down. In the end, though,
it’s all a matter of preference. I like using the
V- ats because they’re easier to maneuver
than larger pieces of foam core, plus they’re
black on one side and white on the other.
In this setup, I placed an Elinchrom 190-
centimeter indirect octabox at a slightly
downward angle to my left and some white
foam core to my right. To further shape
the light and increase the top-to-bottom
gradient of the main light, I agged the bot-
tom of the modi er with two small pieces
of black foam core. To nish the image,
I added a subtle hair light in the form of
a medium Chimera strip box on a boom
above the model. I also employed a grid to
keep this light from hitting the background.John Gress©JAMES DEVRIES