thomasholmphoto

Light Workshop

Added 2025-01-16 15:00:03 +0000 UTC

Some 6 weeks ago, I did a 6-day 1:1 studio light workshop.

The cool thing about having so much time to work with something is that it allowed us to go into more specialty lighting.
And this setup with Wiana was one of them:

We did a Shibari set, and I wanted to make it different and give it a film-noir look, so I set up a Fresnel Spot a bit high and to the far left of the camera.

The Fresnel creates a narrow beam of light with a gradual falloff, which will vignette the light toward the sides.

However, since it is a narrow beam, it doesn’t reflect much of anything, so shadows became very dark (too dark). And with the light being far off to the side, they also become substantial in size.

So, I set up a second (smaller) Fresnell as close to the camera axis as possible but with a very low output. This should not cast shadows but only slightly lighten the shadows on the model. I then fine-tuned the light output until it was just enough for the black to not become completely black and create a little dot in her eyes.

If you look closely, you can see that deep black is, in fact, not deep black but has details.

And voila, my take on Film-Noir with Wiana.

ƒ 7.1 1/160 sec

PS. Feel free to reach out if you are interested in a custom workshop.