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Greg Gorman needs powerful,

adjustable lighting to bring out

aspects of a sitter’s character.

rotolight Leds are just the ticket

A

ccording to Greg
Gorman, who over
the past 40 years
has photographed
everyone from Elton John to
Pierce Brosnan, if you have 20
minutes to shoot you should
spend 15 minutes setting up
your lighting and directing
your model, and 5 minutes
taking pictures. Watching
Gorman work, it’s clear to
see that he practises what he
preaches. Before the model
is even in position Gorman
can be seen observing the
strength and direction of light,
considering where to position
reflectors and/or diffusers.
Unsurprisingly, he has a
degree in cinematography,
and his ability to make artistic
decisions quickly and with

confidence really shows.

Looking at Gorman’s celebrity

portraits you can see he has

an uncanny ability to get

inside people’s heads: Nicolas

Cage rests against a door

frame, exhausted and lost in

thought; Liza Minnelli smiles,

eyes lightly closed, as though

re-living a happy memory.

Gorman is clearly a master of

lighting, and a keen observer

of human nature too.

When he’s not shooting

celebrity portraits, Gorman

likes to photograph the human

form, creating figure studies

(an interest that began in the

1980s). His images often

display high dynamic range,

and for this he needs powerful,

high-quality lighting. As a

consequence, Gorman travels

with Rotolight LEDs, using

them for both his personal

projects and commercial

shoots. The Rotolight NEO 2,

for example, has a number of

advantages over traditional

flash. When employed as a

continuous light source it

enables Gorman to shoot what

he sees. When photographing

the human form, he can watch

how the light falls on a subject’s

body, observing how tiny

adjustments will impact the

final picture. Being able to

control the shadows and the

highlights in such a precise

fashion is crucial to his style

of photography.

Alternatively, the Rotolight

NEO 2 can be used on or

off-camera as a High-Speed

Sync (HSS) flash. With

traditional flash, the modelling

light is usually a fraction of

the power of the flash output,

and often a different colour

temperature too, so what you

see in the preview isn’t what

you get in the final image. This

can be frustrating for portrait

photographers like Gorman

who often have limited time

with a sitter. To overcome

this, the colour temperature

of the modelling light and the

flash can be adjusted on the

Rotolight NEO 2, allowing you

to keep the results consistent

with the environment you find

yourself in. This flexibility

means you can keep playing

with and adjusting your set-up

until everything is spot on.

Less is more

Gorman is an advocate of the

less is more approach – he

often sees photographers

overcomplicating their shots

using multiple light sources,

and he’s keen to stress that it’s

often better to start with one

light and then add more later,

if necessary. When he’s casting

models for a figure shoot he is

obviously looking for perfect

physique, but aside from that

he’s looking for great eyes,

which he’ll give a kick to using

a catchlight. (The circular

shape of the Rotolight NEO 2

makes it ideal for this purpose.)

When it comes to posing

models, Gorman believes that

everyone has a soft and an

edgier side, and how you

light your subject will help to

emphasise one or the other. All pictures © GreG GormAn, http://www.GormAnphotoGrAphy.com

On good

form

Don’t over-light your subjects. Here a
strong hair light directs attention to
the wrong part of the sitter, and can
be jarring compared to a softer light

Keep it looking natural. Here the

Rotolight NEO 2 was set to 1% and

positioned about 10ft away from the

model to create a natural hair light