Studio on a Shoestring

Great Lighting Questions From Readers

I often get really great emails from many of my readers.

Occasionally I think an email deserves a more detailed response because it could benefit many more people than just the individual asking the question. Such is the recent email from one of my readers, Val Patel.

Val says,

“Hello Deborah,
I enjoyed reading your studio tutorials.  They have wealth of information.

The question I have is you said you used two lights for the photography large group, what was the placement of these lights?

Also, another question I have is how do you set up lights when there is no backdrop (or a wall) but a natural background of plants, flowers and trees?

I will be photographing large groups in a pre-wedding party this week-end.  So, your reply will help me tremendously.

Thanks and regards,

Val Patel”

Hello Val (and everyone!)

In the post being referred to, How to Photograph Large Groups in the Studio I did use only two lights. I wanted to keep that vivid orange background super saturated, therefore I did not light it directly. Instead, I only lit the subjects and allowed their lighting to spill over and  slightly illuminate the background.

Lighting a Large Group Outside With Nature as a Backdrop

[…]

Or, You Can Cook Small in a Big Wok, but You Can’t Cook Big in a Small Wok

Photography is a very expensive hobby and an even more expensive career path. Sticker shock can be severe when you’re first learning the craft, and nowhere will prices bite you in the bum more so than lighting equipment. It ain’t cheap to set up a fully functioning photography studio. Especially not if you endeavor to do it right and care about creating beautifully crafted and fabulously lit images.

You don’t have to have multiple studio strobe heads and their accompanying modifiers to produce lovely, nuanced photographs. You don’t actually have to have ANY lights, other than that big ball of nuclear energy in the sky. However, if you want to add a little extra dimension to your images, or you’d like to shoot somewhere other than a fully sun struck spot, adding some supplemental lighting could be just the ticket.

You can achieve a lot of different effects with a single light source. Let’s take a look at them one by one, shall we?[…]