Another round of practicing lighting by myself. This is an exercise I recommend all photographers do from time to time for various reasons but the most important of them is that you can better relate and connect with people who find their way in front of your camera. By putting yourself in front of your camera you are opening yourself up the vulnerability that everyone else experiences by having a picture taken of them. Experiencing this allows you to remember and better understand people going in front of your camera and will make it easier to alleviate those concerns that come up. Afterall, it’s easier to tell someone how to do something if you have done it yourself already.
Furthermore, you also learn a lot about your self by doing this exercise. For example, I know I like simple lighting setups that mix bright lights and heavy shadows. When in bind, that’s probably a technique I will fall back on. Knowing this allows me to do two things:
1) Work to refine my skill at this lighting setup
2) Work to avoid this technique and master other techniques.
Whichever route I go with, I have one clear idea of where I need to go with my craft.
Anyway, these photos were taken with just two lights. A strobe with an octagon softbox as the key light and a strobe with a general reflector as a fill light.