Backlighting Part Three (Daily S.P.O.T. for 5/6/09)

Third and (for the nonce) final chapter of "Adventures in Backlighting." Today's entries come from a photo workshop this past weekend at Studio 6 in Passaic, NJ. One of the shoot's major props was a borrowed motorcycle, so I decided to haul my lights into the studio and set up two strobes with umbrella softboxes to evenly light the critter and whatever model might be draped across it. At literally the last second, I grabbed a third strobe, slapped a diffusion sock over the reflector, cranked it up to a fairly high lumen level, and stuck it in the corner for a little backlighting.

Photographing our model (Carmen Delgado) straight on, it's not that obvious an effect; you can see a little extra glow on the right, but it otherwise doesn't really draw attention to itself.

...but once we switch to a side view, the effect becomes more pronounced. Notice the nice edging of light on Carmen's hair and right arm, and how it makes her stand out from the background. That's exactly why photographers use backlighting. (The main difficulty here was composing the shot and posing the model so that the backlight wasn't visible in the shot; as you will see, that's not always possible, but it has it's uses.)

Also in the studio: what can only be described as hanging black gauze cylinders. Nice to pose a model in, but unless lit properly, they don't look like much. Again, drag a light directly behind the model (in this case, Carmen's sibling Joanie Delgado) and blast away. Here, the gauze helps to further diffuse the backlighting, and the entire scene takes on an otherworldly glow.

Finally, a runway setting with a black background. In this case, I used not one but two backlights (one low, one high) at 45 degree angles, which not only backlit model Sandii Hartke nicely, but also created a virtual "fog" of light thanks to some lens flare. Again, lens flare is not always welcome, much less desirable, but in this case I made a stylistic decision to use it. (What wasn't a stylistic decision: the light stand and extension cord showing up in the background. Maybe at some point I'll get around to Photoshopping it out...)

And one final shot of Joanie that actually incorporates the backlights as an intentional visual effect.

So remember: to make a model really stand out, grab a spare light and advance to the rear!