Professional Photographer - USA (2019-10)

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LIGHTING TUTORIALTHE GOODS

HARD LIGHT

I’ve seen many images in which a pattern

of shadows is projected onto someone’s

face, and I used to struggle to simulate this

type of lighting. Though it took a number of

attempts, I finally learned how to achieve

this effect to my satisfaction.

There are two ways you can attain

sharply defined shadows: with a small light

source far from the pattern—hard light—

or with a specialty modifier that uses lens-

es to focus the pattern on your subject. I

don’t have a lot of experience with the lat-

ter, so I’ll focus on the former.

I wanted the hardest light possible. I

began with an LED light with a fresnel at-

tachment, which worked well except for the

part where I was shining the equivalent

of 650 watts of light into someone’s eyes.

I saw other photographers using a silver

beauty dish with success, but my efforts to

duplicate the technique fell short.

Success came in the form of a Profoto

Hardbox. A Hardbox is a black metal box

with an opening on one side that positions

the flash head perpendicular to the subject,

exposing the flash tube to them in profile.

The result is a tiny light source that pro-

duces hard light.

With the Hardbox about 5 feet away from

the model, David Kushnir, I was able to proj-

ect a sharp pattern through a common ra-

diator screen. In a dark room with the only

light coming from the modeling light in the

Hardbox, I was able to move the screen clos-

er and further away from the subject until

I saw the Union Jack-like pattern displayed

across the model’s face in the way I wanted.

I lit the model from the other side using

a Mola Rayo, a 15-inch silver beauty dish.

You can use anything for the main light

source as long as it’s small and produces

contrast. The pattern would never exist if

it didn’t live in the shadow produced by the

main source.

The problem was that I didn’t want the

pattern in the model’s nose shadow, which

was created by the main light. I recalled

learning how to dodge and burn in the

darkroom, so I taped a piece of cinefoil to a

metal straw and went to work. In this ex-

ample, I asked stylist Pablo Roberto to hold

the tiny flag in place. In subsequent sessions

I’ve simply used a grip head to hold the straw.

I needed to add one more thing before the

image was complete: a flag at the top edge

of the main light so the light would fall off

on the top of the model’s head, ensuring the

viewer’s focus would be drawn to his eyes.

Eventually I realized I could get the Hard-

box look with a standard reflector, I just

had to move the light a lot farther away,

around 13 feet from the subject.