Two lights, many options

It has been a while since I've posted any lighting set-ups so let's fix that today with four recent examples. These pictures were all done on location with either one or two lights, using a variety of techniques to produce different effects.

1: Wraparound lighting with zoom

This portrait of a martial arts champion used a large, diffused light source in front of him to frame left, with a small, hard light source behind him to frame right. The camera was set to f/16 at ISO 200 with a 1-second exposure, which under-exposed the sports hall background by about two stops. As soon as I tripped the shutter, the flashes fired to produce a correct exposure of the subject, and then I zoomed the lens to blur the ambient.

As well as producing some eye-catching results, this technique has the advantage that you can easily adjust your shutter speed to produce different results. You don't need to adjust the lights at all.

2: Wraparound lighting with camera shake

This shot to promote a rave used a large, diffused light source to frame left with a small, hard light source to frame right. Again a long exposure was used but instead of zooming, the camera was moved around to create streaks of light. We did the shot on a stage, surrounded by black curtains, with the only ambient light provided by two banks of multi-coloured disco lights.

3: Wraparound lighting with key shifting

I'm not sure how the term "key shifting" came about but it seems to be catching on as the way to describe this technique. Basically you use flash to correctly expose your subjects, and a high shutter speed to darken the ambient light, producing a moody, surreal effect. This shot used a large, diffused light source immediately behind the camera position, with a small, hard light source behind the subjects to frame right. The ambient was under-exposed by approximately one stop.

The light at the back puts a highlight around the subjects (sometimes called trim or accenting) which creates a nice 3D effect and helps to separate them from whatever you're using as a background, especially if it's dark.

4: Using distance to produce a silhouette

If I was going to teach someone about lighting then one of the first techniques I'd want them to learn is how to produce a silhouette in a small room. The reason is that this technique is based on the inverse square law, which is just a fancy way of saying that lights become less effective if you place them further away from your subject. Get the hang of this technique and you'll understand how light has a depth of field, affected by distance in the same way that the aperture setting on your lens affects the camera's depth of focus.

This picture was done in a school classroom. The photograph of Auschwitz was stuck to a white wall and a small light source was placed in front of it, lower down so it wouldn't appear in the shot. The camera was set to 1/250s, f/11 at ISO 100 which allowed no ambient light to register in the exposure. The only light would be from the flash. The two subjects then stood slightly behind the flash.

Now you might expect the light from the flash to hit the white wall and bounce around the room, eventually lighting the subjects too. And that's exactly what does happen. But the effective silhouette is produced because of the contrasting distances involved. The light from the flash only had to travel about three feet to correctly expose the wall and the Auschwitz photo. And then, yes, it travelled around the room, bouncing back off the walls and ceiling and eventually lighting the two subjects. But because the light had to bounce around for maybe 30 feet, the subjects were dozens of stops under-exposed, which for our purposes is the same as them not having any light at all.

As always, if anything I've written here has helped you learn about lighting then please try to help others learn in future. Thanks!