Smoking Strobes

Onelight clamshell lighting setup

michael — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:37:30 +0000

One of the current trends in lighting: The strong comeback of clamshell lighting for fashion, beauty and just about anything.

Does this mean you need to take a trip to the seaside and pick up some clamshells? Not at all. It just means you should power up your one speedlight, open up your shoot through umbrella and a reflector and then head over to the video and click play to watch it.

The lighting diagram of the clamshell light is like this:

Clamshell lighting with just one speedlight

Model: Fredau Hoekstra
Styling: Emily Wei
Photography: Michael Zelbel
Postproduction: Renzy Memije
Graphic Design: Alex Zlatev

I wish you good light!
-- Michael

A dozen light modifiers for free

michael — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 22:21:25 +0000

Today I am going to show you how you can get your hands on a dozen of light modifiers with different shapes and different qualities.

What is the light source which drives all of this? You are looking at it right now. An computer screen. Perferably a laptop.

Now watch how to use the light modifiers on your state of the art, top notch high end LED light source aka laptop screen. After that follow the link below the video.

Go close with your laptop screen

==> Download the digital light modifiers

which we used in this video.

I wish you good light!
-- Michael

Photo backdrop for (n)on-location shoots

michael — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:28:59 +0000

Just imagine, two young, wild and extremely creative hair stylists styling a couple of hair models in your studio. Cutting lots of hair, coloring, gluing and much more. Imagine all of that taking place in your studio... what a mess. No, no, let's better pack your mobile photo backdrop, go to their hair saloon and shoot awesome studio photos right there.

The cotton cloth lighting setup

Many, many thanks to

Lutz and Ümit for Toni and Guy
Model Coco
Model Jennifer
Model Jennifer Hill

I am loving all of you!

I wish you good light!
-- Michael

No giant softboxes at hand? Use reflectors!

michael — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 08:20:27 +0000

Fortunately Ortwin Schneider was on holiday. He is the owner of the fancy Fotomagic rental studio. That’s where we did today’s photo shoot. Ortwin equipped the studio with multiple kilowatt seconds of the finest Hensel strobes and with huge light modifiers, even with a huge Deep-Octabox.

I guess he would have cried bitter tears if he saw, how we did actually light our model, cousin Sarathustra in his studio: with 3 bare speedlights. That’s how things go when two photographers meet up, who both love to use speedlights off camera: Cousin Blende666, who frequently hosts off-camera flash workshops and yours truly.

Today’s goal was to contrast a Geisha makeup and hairdo with a latex outfit. And latex is the part where usually huge light modifiers would come into play, but… see yourself:

Lighting diagram of our latex reflections shoot

I wish you good light!

-- Michael

Model: Sarathustra

Styling: Emily

Photos: Blende666 and Michael Zelbel

Studio: Fotomagic

Lighting setup for catalog photos

michael — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 08:08:55 +0000

And here comes the lighting setup! A few week ago I was talking to you about how pulling off a little fashion brochure is such an easier way to make money with your photography then doing a wedding shoot for example. However, you saw me doing such a shoot in that video, but I did not explain the lighting setup in detail.

The point is, when you do such a shoot, which does not involve models, then you have all the time in the world to figure out your perfect lighting. My lighting setup may not be the best one for you. However, a number of viewers asked for it, so today I am explaining the setup that I used for that shoot.

I hope this setup is a good starting point for you and I hope you do your catalog shoot soon.

I wish you good light!
-- Michael

Big concert photography in your small pub

michael — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:46:07 +0000

Last video before my Chinese New Year break! I hear some of you say: "Michael, why concert photography? Why shooting a musician on stage?"

On location photography can be pure fun. The fashion-, beauty-, and nude photo shoots which I show in the videos on this blog certainly are. But they only represent a super tiny part of all the photographic genres which are exciting, fun and with which you can make a lot of people happy. Today I’d like to introduce an example for a shoot which does not involve any bikini model, but which certainly is as much fun. The best part: You can do the shoot for yourself. You don’t need to be a concert photographer, you don’t need an accreditation, you don’t need to beg a concert organizer constantly for half a year so that they allow you to take a few photos during the first 3 minutes of the concert. In small venues the live of a concert photographer is much more fun. Have a look:

This diagram is just an example:

Our position in front of the stage

And I am serious: If you go try it out now, then wear your earplugs. I don't want your hearing to suffer so that next time you visit my blog you complain that the sound of the videos is not working anymore. Speaking of the next time:

Finally, my out-of-office announcement

For the next weeks, I'll be on a trip to China. I am going to celebrate Chinese New Year with the Chinese part of my family. I won't have time for videos because I have to fully concentrate on all the dinners with all the nice food, you know. I am going to be back with the next blogpost in the last week of February. I hope until then Youtube adopted a cinema like widescreen video format, wide enough for me fitting onto the screen... even after I gained a couple of kilograms in China.

I wish you good light!
-- Michael

PS.:

Here's the song that Jinri Liqui plays at the end of the video:

==> 江湖 / Jianghu / Vagabounds (MP3)

You want to sing a long? Awesome, here's your text:

A1:我们的理想呢我们的誓言呢我们的坚强呢

我们的声音呢

我们的呼吸呢我们的青春呢我们的倔强呢我们的笑容呢

如果你都已改变改变不了你的嘴脸

岁月如风声吹过吹过的都会如云烟

A2:我们的脚步呢我们的追随呢我们的拥抱呢

我们的眼泪呢

我们是混合的我们是交错的如果你们都变了还有我们呢

如果你们都改变改变的只有你的尊严

岁月如风声吹过吹过的都会如云烟

经过我们的身边留下坚硬的谎言

经过我们的侧脸那些拳头的语言

如果我们都改变坚硬的穿透了谎言

如果我们去那些只有潮湿的语言

潮湿的语言潮湿的语言

如果生命只是过程我怎会如此的失落

Hard to get my thick German accent? Here's the transcript!

Hey fellow photographer, how's it going? I'm Michael Zelbel.

Today I would like to show you
how you can make photos of a musician.
The musician is giving a concert in a small pub or small venue.
I want you to make the photos in a way
so that it looks like the concert is on a big stage.

That could be your favorite local artist in a local pub or something.
The photos would be really charming for that artist.

Last week, one of our cousins dropped a comment
under last week's video which said:
"You know, you are always shooting this girls,
but I cannot do that because in my country
this sort of photography would be illegal."
This cousin cannot do bikini- or nude photography, or beauty photography.
I thought, there are so many topics that are fun to photograph.
Why not show some of them. Today I'm into music.

I think shooting in a small venue like a pub is just lovely
because over there I'm in the front row.
I'm in contact with the musician. The musician is
throwing me special looks and makes special moves just for me
if I'm nice and if I cheer them up.
I can even use speedlights,
which I could not do in a big concert hall.

Big concert halls, they require me to be an
accredited photographer working for a music magazine.
I can only be there alone. I cannot use speedlights.
I can only shoot 3 songs or something.
You know, shooting in a pub is much more fun.

In any concert, I have to come with
super lightweight gear, super slim gear.
I cannot setup lightstands or something.
You know, that would be really asking for trouble.

So all I have is one speedlight, and, fortunately,
I have an assistant who is holding that speedlight.
In our case, this assistant is Cousin Jade.
She is holding the speedlight which is a very small speedlight,
not very strong, it's just guide number 43 and
she is just holding it up into the air, into the direction of the band.

Basically what we do is: We have a stage.
It's a pretty small stage. It got some lighting and everything.
It got musicians in the middle of the stage.
I'm shooting from one side of the stage towards the band
and Cousin Jade will go to the other side,
to hold the speedlight over there.

Or, if I change sides and I shoot from that side of the stage,
then Cousin Jade will change to the other side.
There is always a big distance between camera and
the speedlight which contributes to the lighting
so that the lighting setup is nicely 3-dimensional.

The ISO is pushed quite hight, because on stage it's very dark.
The shutter speed should be around 1/125th or faster
so that the action is sort of frozen.
Of course I'm shooting with open aperture.

So that is one trick: use a speedlight in a small pub.
Another trick would be: go low.
Go down to your knees and shoot upwards.
This does two things for you:
Point A it introduces a very good big stage feeling,
like you would be on a big stage where the artist is high up.

Another thing is, in a pub a lot of times there's
a lot of clutter in the background.
The walls don't look like a big stage and so on.
But if you go very low and shoot upwards,
then a lot of times you can avoid a lot of the clutter.
You are just shooting against the ceiling.
There is some lighting equipment hanging under the ceiling.
That is OK. So I would say, go down to your knees!
Shoot upwards! It will make your photos really really
different from everybody else's photos.

You can gel your speedlights to make the light a bit warmer.
That's up to your taste. Or you can use color gels.
All of that is fine in a concert.

Just if you now go and visit a concert,
don't forget your earplugs. It will be very loud.
And, yes, go there, have some fun.

Ok, that's it. Please click on the like-button. Click on the +1 button.
Please let me know if this sort of video,
this video about music photography instead of beauty,
is OK for you, if that is interesting for you.
Drop me a comment. Let me know if that
resonates with you, or if you just say:
"No, that's really not my thing. Don't bother me with that stuff!"
Alrighty! In any case: I wish you a lot of fun
with your photography and good light!

Warm up your model with backlight photography

michael — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:27:51 +0000

Before Roger Federer is going to play one of his glorious tennis matches he is... warming up his body. Before Michael Schumacher is winning a Formula one race he is... warming up his car. Before you, fellow photographer, will shoot the next award winning nude photo of your super model you are going to... yes, you are going to warm up your model.

Sounds like extra work? Not really. To pitch this idea, I am going to deliver it together with a super easy and fast one light setup. You and your model are going to love it and it’s and awesome start into a great photos shoot with less clothes and weird poses.

Here’s your plan:

Here’s the one-light setup:

One-Light Backlight Setup

I wish you good light!
-- Michael

Hard to get my thick German accent? Here's the transcript!

Hey fellow photographer! How's it going?
I'm Michael Zelbel.

In this video I will show you a very quick and easy
one-light lighting setup.
I'm using the setup in order to warm up my models before the shoot.
That's very useful especially if you are shooting nude photos,
and you need to get the model comfortable in front of your lens.

The model we are warming up today is Cousin Emily.
You might go like: "Hey come on, Cousin Emily is so
used to photographs. She is a real pro. You don't need to warm her up!"
But, that's wrong actually! I think it's a very good practice
to warm up your model.

If the model is not yet comfortable in front of your lens
and in front of your lights you will read that
in her body language and in her facial expressions.
That gives you results which you usually don't want to have.
So better warm her up and make a sort of artistic shooting
with a few little photos upfront.

Usually you don't have so much time and resources
ahead of your actual shoot that is why I think you should
go for a super simple one-light lighting setup.
Something which is bullet proof, which definitely
produces good results which the model will like,
which is very easy to light and which gives you the
ability to shoot her nude but which does not show anything.
This is what we are going to do.
We achieve that by covering the model with
a big piece of silk so she is hidden underneath the silk.
Let's have a look at the actual lighting setup.

We have a simple black backdrop which is made up
out of two black curtains.
Those curtains have a gap in the middle, right in the middle.
The model is placed in the middle and she is
pretty close to that black curtain, 1.50 meter away.
That's not so much distance.
She is covered with a big piece of white silk,
which is thin enough to let some light go through,
but thick enough to - under normal lighting conditions -
not show anything.

The one speedlight that we use is placed right in
the gap of this two backdrops.
It's in this case a speedlight with guide number 58.
It's dialed down to 1/16th of its power,
zoomed back to 24mm so it got a broad cone of light,
which makes sure the light goes everywhere in the silk,
no matter how the model is posing.
The camera is a little bit further away,
4 meters or 13 feet and it's on standard settings,
1/200s, f/11, ISO400 and daylight white balance.
That's already it. Not so much to setup.

But it's ideal for warming up your model, not only a shy model.
The model may or may not wear underwear,
that really makes no difference.

What makes a bit of difference is the hairdo.
If she is tying up her hair that really makes for some nice,
fancy shapes underneath the silk.

Some mistake that I made in this little shoot was
I had Cousin Emily wearing high heels and jewelry.
It's not such a big difference but on this silhuetted photos
it does not really match the emotion of the photos.
Wearing nothing would be much better.

Especially if you use a little trick:
You can, for instance, turn around the photos 180 degrees
and then it looks like a sort of cocoon.
If she is then inside this cocoon she looks like a
sort of embryo, actually an embryo with boobs,
but still something like an alien embryo.
And then high heels and jewelry, you know,
doesn't really match. But whatever. It's just for warming up. I don't care.

You can give your model permission to do all sorts of
wired poses underneath the silk, wired expressions.
That makes her free to later on also do wired poses.
That really warms her up.
It's ideal for that because she is so covered.

If you still say: "Michael, bullshit, you don't really
need to warm up your model so much!"
I would ask you to do ONE thing, because then
for sure you haven't done one thing:
Have somebody taking nude photos of yourself!
And I really mean that. Do it! Do it at least one time!
I don't blame you if you never did it, but now go
and ask a photography buddy to shoot some nude
photos of yourself.
Because this way you experience how exposed a nude
model feels in front of a lens.
Then you will know that even a seasoned pro of a model
feels quite exposed and it's a good idea to make her
comfortable and warm her up.

Alrighty! Enough for this week, now please click on the like button,
click on the plus one button, drop a comment,
and come back next Thursday!
I wish you good light!

DIY high key lighting room

michael — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 15:44:47 +0000

Say you want to shoot spectacular, charming lingerie photos with high key lighting. You want a lighting setup which is bathing your hot model in ultra soft light. Then what would be better than a huge white studio with some giant 6 feet softboxes and 20000 WS of studio strobes? What would be better? Well, a tiny little stock room and two speedlights. Yes cousin, I really mean BETTER.

Have a look:

Here’s the lighting setup with camera settings for this tutorial:

High key lighting in a small room

Now please go and give your garage a new white paint!

I wish you good light!
-- Michael

Hard to get my thick German accent? Here's the transcript!

Hey fellow photographer! How's it going? I'm Michael Zelbel.

Today I will show you how you can use two speedlights
in order to turn a tiny white room into something like
a huge, posh studio for high key photography.
I'll show you a high key lighting setup which
you can use for lingerie photos - for instance.

Our model will be Cousin Coco.
She'll be posing in such a tiny, white room
and she will be wearing lingerie.

We'll use our little speelights in a way so that it looks like
we are bathing Cousin Coco in a whole lot of
bright, soft, charming light - it's just wonderful.

You might have seen some of this shooting scenes
in a former video of mine.
In that video I was talking about the Odin radio flash trigger
and yes, a lot of you liked the Odin radio trigger
but even more of you would love to know the
actual lighting setup that we used for this shoot.

So today I will explain the lighting setup.
So this video will be a simple high key photography
tutorial for speedlights, so to speak.
I'll basically show you how to blow out your
highlights in the background and
depending on the style of photos you are shooting,
you may or may not want to blow out the hightlights
in your background, but in any case, you always
need to control it.
So, pay attention and learn the basics.

Our location, as I said, is an ugly, tiny, little white room.
This room is basically a shoe cabinet at our home.
This is where Cousin Emily stores her shoes.
She got quite a lot of shoes, but still,
the room itself is very small.

Let's have a look at the details in the lighting setup.
The room is 1.80m wide and 2.80m long. That's not very big.
Over here at the side there is one white shoe cabinet.
We painted the whole room simply white,
also the ceiling is white.

We will place the model somewhere on that side
next to the shoe cabinet.
A speedlight is behind the model, standing on the ground.
It's firing towards the back wall, I would say.
Another speedlight is standing on the shoe cabinet.
It's at a height of 1.80m or at a height of 6 feet.
It's also firing towards the back side of that room.
They are booth zoomed back to 24mm,
so that light goes everywhere.
They are both speedlights with guide number 58,
and the are on 1/4th of their power.

We could have gotten away with one speedlight over here,
we just would need to set it to 1/2 of it's power,
and would have probably put it onto a lightstand,
so that it shoots into the middle of that back wall.

What happens now is: light is bouncing off all the walls.
That is why the light is so soft. It's coming from everywhere.
It's bouncing against the ceiling, against the walls.
There is also some light bouncing from this little wall,
this front wall, back towards the model, into her face and front.

But for me, for my taste, this was not enough light.
I wanted to have a bit more punch, a bit more, you know,
I wanted to have the model a little bit brighter,
that is why I added a third speedlight,
which is shooting from outside the room
into the room towards the model.
It's zoomed to 80mm, a small cone of light,
directly pointing at the model.
We don't need a lot of light.
It's dialed back to 1/16th of its power, that is enough.
Alright, that's already the lighting setup.

Probably, a little trick: On the back door, there's a door knob.
which would usually show up in the photograph, because it's dark.
I did cover it with a little towel, a little white towel,
because - remember - I wanted to burn out the background
anyway, so the towel would not show in the photo.

That's it. Easy to do. So I would ask you to
find a little white room. Clean up your store room.
Paint your garage white. Setup a white tent in your garden.
Or just use some bedsheets and lightstands to
build a little white room.
It doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to be white.

Shoot some posh photos. Make a model happy.
Do something for her sedcard and
shoot some posh photos for your portfolio.
In any case, try it out. Give it a try.
Let me know how it's working for you.
Drop some comments under this video.
Click the like button. Click the +1 button.
And please, please come back next Thursday for the next episode.

Alrighty! Like always I wish you good light!

Sweet Catalogue Photo Business

michael — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 08:06:14 +0000

This is the last post of 2011. The next video for improving your photo skills will be posted here on Thursday, January 5ht 2012. I know, I know, cousin, it would be cool if you could become the next Mike Larson, shooting 5-figure weddings. Or if you could become the next Yuri Arcurs makeing 7 figures with microstock photography. There’s nothing wrong with this dream of a wildly successful photography business and I highly encourage you to pursue it.

However, in the meantime, I mean... while still living in REALITY I suggest first of all taking some baby steps into lucrative paid photography. How about starting with something, that works according to your pace and schedule while you are still busy with your daytime job?

Here’s my idea for today:

I wish you good light!
-- Michael

Hard to get my thick German accent? Here's the transcript!

Hey fellow photographer! How's it going?

I'm Michael Zelbel, and today I've got a question for you:

Are you trying to earn money with your photography?

And if so, are you probably missing out

on some easy opportunities to shoot for money?

I am asking because what I see in books, ebooks, DVDs

especially on the subject of "Beginning to shoot for money"

or "Beginning a photography business"

they are always talking about the "Wedding business"

and they are always talking about "microstock",

yes, "microstock millions", but the reality is

especially for us amateurs, wedding is kind of tough.

It's very easy to fuck up.

And also microstock - that's super hard.

I mean, you need thousands of excellent photos

in order to make money.

I would like to motivate you to probably look into

something less spectacular.

Don't be ashamed to look into some,

let's say "bread and butter" sort of business.

My suggestion for today would be:

How about a fashion brochure - for instance?

A fashion catalogue. You know this type where they

just show the clothes on a white background.

That's really easy to photograph.

And it's not as risky as a wedding. You can't really fuck it up.

You can fiddle around until everything is ok, the light is ok

and the photos are ok. It's very easy to do.

It's just clothes on mannequins. It's not even models.

It's easy, peasy, lemmon-squeezy.

And it's much less work than microstock.

Even the tedious photoshop work of cutting out clothes and

isolating them, you can outsource that.

Actually you SHOULD outsource that. You MUST outsource that.

It's so cheap. You can have it for 5 bucks or something

done by professional services like Mr. Clipping.

No way, that you can do it yourself for that money.

If that's interesting for you, then I think you are lucky

because there has never been a better time for us photographers

to get such shoots from design and fashion people.

Just jump over to LinkedIn or Facebook

or meet some of those people in the real world

and talk to them about something and sooner or later

talk to them about catalogue photography.

Chances are very good that in the current economy they are telling you

"Yes, we really need photos but we can't pay

our old, professional photographers anymore."

And that is where you an jump in and offer a medium budget alternative.

Then you just care for your setup.

What you need is a white wall in your home or

a paper backdrop, or something in your garage.

You need a couple of speedlights.

It's OK to use the $40 speedlights from Yongnuo or something.

You just make a setup where light is coming from everywhere.

Then, borrow some mannequins. Exactly. BORROW them.

Don't BUY them. Absolutely don't buy them.

They are really expensive and if you borrow them,

if you just go to the next design shop,

the shop around the corner and borrow some,

then you can talk to that shop about photos as well.

Chances are, over there you directly book your next shoot.

When you did the shoot, you use a service like

Photoshelter and their "lightbox" for

letting your client select the photos for postproduction.

Once the client selected their photos, you just

give that stuff to Mr. Clipping or a similar service.

It's really, literally, that easy.

Let me know in the comments if that sounds doable for you.

Actually let me know, if that sounds even interesting for you

or if you got any reason why you think you cannot do it.

Let me know. I'm curious. I would like to know about it.

Besides that, click on the like button.

Click on the "+1" button. After you are done with that,

go to LinkedIn. Find the designers.

Or go to Facebook. Find the fashion people over there.

Talk to them. Talk to them about the weather - I don't mind -

just sooner or later, talk them into a paid photo shoot.

Don't sell yourself too cheap.

Sell yourself for an amount that you are happy with.

Try it out. It's so much easier than wedding.

Alrighty! I hope to see you next Thursday.

Until the, do a cool, paid photo shoot.

And I wish you good light!

Boudoir Photography Tips for Speedlights

michael — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 01:34:07 +0000

Where ever you go, there’s always a bedroom somewhere. It’s ready to act as your studio for an awesome boudoir photo shoot. Especially during the winter season a nice warm bedroom is a much more convenient location than anything outside. In this video, I’ll share a simple lighting setup with you, that gives you nice, soft, warm boudoir photos, which also got a bit of punch. Just the right mix to be eyecatching. The setup is ideal for small bedrooms. No need to check into the presidential suite of a Waldorf Astoria, instead you can do it in your “home, sweet home”.

Along with a couple of boudoir photography tips, I hope this video makes some appetite to go and organize your next photo shoot.

So have a look at the video now:

Here’s the lighting setup shown in the video:

Model: Emily

I wish you good light!
-- Michael

Hard to get my thick German accent? Here's the transcript!

Hey fellow photographer, how's it going?

I'm Michael Zelbel

Today I've got a simple lighting setup for you

which enables you to turn any bedroom into

your own photo studio for boudoir photography.

Why that?

Well, because currently it's winter holliday season.

Outside it's blistering cold and

I'm really glad that our location for today

is a warm and cozy bedroom.

Ain't that good?

My initial idea for todays video was quite different.

I actually wanted to make a "making of" video of a photo shoot.

A "making of" of the shoot that

you see right now on your screen.

That is a photo shoot that I made for an ebook.

I published that eBook a couple of days ago.

But, you know, having such a "making of" video is nice,

I can put it onto my blog or

upload it to my social networks, but then again,

what is the use for you?

You know, what is the use for the viewer

if you see a "making of" video?

No benefit!

That is, why I now completely changed my mind

and I thought: "No, let's take one lighting setup

out of this ebook and explain that lighting setup".

Because then you have got something

which you can use in your photography,

which you can replicate and which you can try out

right today in your own bedroom or tomorrow,

in a hotel bedroom. It's quite easy.

So let's jump into that lighting setup

and I am going to explain it.

So, the fundamental thing is a bed.

Over here we have got a king-sized bed, 2x2meters.

And shooting such a bed is nice,

but can be quite boring at times,

that's why we should add a model.

We can pose the model in any way, shape or form on the bed,

but the main point is, we need some light

in order to see the model on the photograph.

That's why we add a speedlight over here at the side.

I used a strong speedlight, guide number 58,

but I dialed the power way down to 1/32nd of it's power

because the bedroom was quite small

and got white walls so I don't need so much light actually

I did let it go through a big shoot-through umbrella

so that the light is nice and smooth and soft

and I positioned the umbrella just above the bed,

so that the light is coming from a quite low angle

making all the folds in the bedsheet quite 3-dimensional.

The camera is positioned exactly oposite

at the other corner of the bed.

The settings are, well, most of them quite standard

1/200s, f2.8 for shallow depth of field, ISO100

but I dialed up the white balance to 10000 Kelvin

Why? Because the speedlight is delivering

very blue-ish, daylight-quality light of roughly 5800 Kelvin,

but I wanted to turn the thing

into a very warm and cozy scene, quite yellow-ish scene,

that is why I dialed up the white balance in camera,

so that the stuff comes out of camera quite yellow-ish

just like it would be Tungsten light, or even warmer.

This is one little trick, but wait there's more...

We have got another trick and that's a good one:

we add a second speedlight for much more punch.

A second speedlight is over there.

It's not quite as strong: guide number 43.

It's also dialed down to 1/32nd of it's power.

It's going through a lamp shade, a lamp shade of a bedside lamp.

Actually, the speedlight is inside the lamp,

so when you see the lamp in the photograph,

(the camera is shooting right towards the lamp)

when you see it, it looks like the lamp is glowing

but what you actually see is the speedlight

going off inside the lamp.

That gives the photos quite a bit of punch

and it's very easy to do. Just take a lamp shade,

put a speedlight inside and there you go,

there you got your punch. That's all it takes.

So, it's not so much gear, two speedlights,

a lightstand, one umbrella. I think that is somthing

that you can easily take with you, for instance

into a hotel room when you travel.

But you can also try it out at home.

Because it's working in very small bedrooms

you can have the tiniest and an ugly bed

but with that sort of lighting, you know, it will pop.

You can iluminate just a piece of the room

and it will be just fine. So go try it out!

Tell me how it worked for you.

Drop a comment under the video

and come back next Thursday.

Until then I wish you good light!