I recently did themed photoshoot for a makeup brand. The brand’s goal was to create a very pastel / muted effect against a pink background. Well lit with lots of highlights (complimented with lots of baby oil).
To accomplish the look I used 2 octabanks close to my model with 2 v-flat bounce boards on each side. The plan was to hit the models with lots of soft light minimizing shadows creating even lighting across the entire photo. The v-flats helped throw light behind the models minimizing shadows on the background and the model’s sides. Both lights were set just under a 45 degree angle to the background and approximately 7’ high aimed slightly down. The the hotspot of the lights was aimed directly at the center of the background.
Here is the setup:
Unfortunately, I don’t have 2 identical octabanks in the studio, so I compromised and used:
1 x Elinchrom BRX500
1 x Elinchrom Rotalux 53” Octabank with both internal and external diffusers
1 x Paul C Buff 640WS Einstein
1 x Paul C Buff 47” Octabank with both internal and external diffusers
Using 2 different types and sizes of lights is not optimal. Color temperature, cycle time, modifier size had to be considered, but the difference was minimal for this shoot. I did take the first photo against a grey card so I could color correct in Adobe Lightroom.
Because the brands were different I triggered them with a set of Pocket Wizard Plus X transceivers.
The series was tethered to my MacBook Pro as the client wanted to monitor the shoot. As always I metered my lights with a Sekonic light meter and set my camera to f/9, 1/160, ISO 160. Once I got my light set I didn’t change the settings. I also shot on a tripod which is somewhat unusual for my style. All images were shot against a 53” roll of Savage Universal Coral seamless background paper.
I was happy with the effect and the outcome of the shoot. All images were edited in Adobe Photoshop using a substantial amount of beauty editing which tends to be more involved than my normal editorial styled editing.
