134 Setting up a Home Studio
not necessary for perfect paths if you practice a little. I have a few
images with clipping paths included, but in my experience, the time
and effort spent using even the quick-and-dirty shortcut are hard to
justify. Your mileage may vary.Advanced Lighting Techniques
The lighting ideas I have explained above will do for a wide range of
microstock work. Try moving the lights around and changing your
camera position. However, the desire to make your work stand out
from the crowd might lead you to experiment with other techniques
and more advanced lighting.
More lights can provide more options, but two or three light systems
should cover 95% of what you will ever need to do. Below are a few
ideas; try purchasing a specialized lighting book from the extensive
range of photographic books published by Focal Press if you want
more detail.RIM LIGHTING
Once you start getting creative, there are lots of lighting ideas to
explore. The next image, Figure 7.15, “Wine Being Poured,” has been
used in a major advertising campaign in the United Kingdom for a fi ne
art paper manufacturer. The effect is good, but the setup was surpris-
ingly simple. I illustrate it in Figure 7.16.
A single light was used with a softbox diffuser. The middle
section of the softbox was covered with black velvet, which
continued to run under the subject. This meant that one light
was effectively converted into two strips down either side of the
velvet strip. On top of the velvet on the table is a sheet of glass
taken from an old glass tabletop to provide some refl ection and
add depth to the image. (Although only the very base of the glass
is visible, it helps to create a more three-dimensional effect in the
fi nal shot.) The last stage was to get a friend to pour some wine
in to the glass, and then to take the shot from the tripod-mounted
cameral. Voilà!
Dark backgrounds are more unusual than white in the world of
microstocks, but that can be a selling point as there is less competition
if someone comes looking for a different image. The wine image has
been a top seller of mine on several microstock sites, proving the
point.
For Figure 7.17, let’s revert to a no-fl ash scenario to show
that sometimes using just available light is not only possible but