Daron in Media
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I am often asked by other photographers about my lighting setup. Most photographers find a lighting setup or style they like and stick with it for most everything they shoot. I never take this one-size fits all approach and engineer the lighting based on the qualities of the subject I intend to feature as well as the limitations of the subject, equipment, and conditions.
This image of Brittany is a perfect example of engineering the light for the situation.
This image was preconcieved - I wanted dramatic lighting but I didn't want a dated 'edge' that is very popular right now. I love that edgie look, but it doesn't flatter this beatiful young woman and doesn't necessarily work with the cowgirl old-west theme very well either.
I did decide to cross-light her and give a slight edge reminiscent of (my vague memory of) the Marlboro cowboy billboard images of mychildhood. I chose to go with a more specular light by taking the baffles out of my favorite 20" softboxes. Both were placed about chest high with the one on the left much closer but turned down to not overpower. I wanted a more specular highlit edge, but didn't want to overpower the balanced fill on the right. Notice the shadow of the bridle on her left (camera right) -- how the light coming in from the right, hard -- but then see the natural look of the lighting on that arm and contrast that to her other side, where there's a bit of an edging and her cheek is hot. I wanted this effect to jump her out of the image but didn't want to go overboard.
I wanted to balance the background we we saw the texture in that sky. Westerners will notice how the clouds build up over the mountains compared to the plains. This is a natural occurence that i wanted to add to the realism of this image.
The other important piece of this image is the saddle. I had originally wanted the saddle to be slightly out of focus as it is here, but larger in the image. To keep her in relation to the mountains in the background, I had to use an 85mm lens -- which meant that the only option to make the saddle bigger would be to move her and the camera back towards the fence. Doing this would bring the saddle significantly farther into focus and detract from the look I was visualizing. Due to the limitations of focal plane shutter SLRs, The only other option would have been to change the aperture on the camera. That would have lightened the sky and ruined the image. This placement was a compromise to get as strong of an image as possible given equipment and location limitations.
Here is a diagram of the lighting setup:
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