Hi James, love the image, what was the main source of light in this shot?
I love Arri Tungsten fresnels. Their probably the best bang for the buck you can find and digital is quite forgiving with tungsten (depending on camera).
They kind of mess up the blue channel so it seems to give a fraction more grit and to me a film like look.
The shot in yellow has a shadow to give it some depth and as long as the shadow is defined it doesn’t detract, just adds to the image.
It was shot with the spot set on wide and using the doors, just slightly move them in to only cover the subject and background.
The one thing about lighting a subject and working a hard shadow is as the subject moves or changes position, you really need to follow them with the light.
Just 4 inches of movement of the light can make it or break it and I’ve never believed that when your shooting a living subject to plant them in one spot and not let them move.
It depends on your style of work, but I’ve always found that when talent is planted the spontaniety gets lost.
We mounted a 650 watt Arri on a C-stand arm somewhat loose and as I shot I direct the assistant to move the light, in this instance is was almost on top of the lens.
It make’s the talent’s blue eyes just pop and has a nice slight fall off on the body and face.
I’ve used Arri kits forever and have three ranging from 650 to I think 175 watts.
This was shot with three Fresnels, running a fog machine.
The plan on the fog machine was to add some extra look to the background, but the cool thing about filling a room full of mist is it softens the light just a touch and gives it a more even spread.
I’ve also used Profoto hard boxes, both of their Fresnel flash heads and they work well, but since we shoot motion on most everything now, I use flash less and less and more continuous lighting.
BC
