I’ve been doing a series of lighting / shadow / colored test photoshoots in studio. On a recent test I wanted to test casting a colored splash of light across my model. The concept was to cast a shadow on the back of the model colorized with a gelled studio strobe and put a splash of color across my models chest. The images would then be put in a 4-block composition with several colors.
To achieve this look, I used a white wall, 2 lights, 1 V-Flat and 1 pc of cardboard with a 4” x 24” cut in it mounted on a reflector stand.
The V-Flat was opened so one side was 4’ from the wall with one side horizontal to the wall. I then put my DIY cardboard flag on a background stand similar distance from the wall angled 45 degrees from the wall. I left a 2-3’ gap between the V-Flat and the cardboard.
Two lights were used. A single Profoto B2 strobe with a barn door to constrict the light and a Paul C Buff Einstein with an 8” reflector.
Look I know you are never supposed to mix lights, but honestly, I tend to fix any color temperature differences in post, and I probably could have used 2 B2’s, but hindsite….
Anyway, on the 8” reflector I taped different color Elinchrom colored filters for the accent / splash color through the slit in the cardboard.
The filtered / gelled Einstein was set camera right at a 45 degree angle from my model. It was placed approximately 5-6 feet from the cardboard flag. I used a pc of cardboard big enough to prevent spill outside of the slit. The Profoto was placed approximately 10’ away from the model camera left. The light was set so it would partially hit the v-flat and partially the model.
Both lights were triggered with a set of PocketWizard Plus X triggers. The filtered Einstein was metered at f/7.1 and the Profoto was metered at f/9 using a Sekonic I-358 (discontinued, but still works great). My camera was set to 1/160, ISO 160, f/9. The only setting I changed was the aperture to get a punchier look.
Here is the output using a blue, red, green and yellow filter. I worked with Model Tamalynn from LModelz Model Management
This is an interesting / fun effect that I will want to expand in future tests and possibly take into a full fashion editorial.