Conversations with Friends.

 
For Episode 002 of our bi-weekly series, “Con­ver­sa­tions with Friends,” we had the oppor­tu­nity to sit down with award-winning pho­tog­ra­pher and won­der­ful edu­ca­tor, Bobbi Lane, to dis­cuss light­ing tech­niques for video and how to stay cur­rent as a pro­fes­sional photographer.

For many pho­tog­ra­phers and film­mak­ers it is key to be portable and be able to pack and unpack very quickly, so we decided to bring only two cam­eras (the Canon EOS 7D with a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L II IS USM lens, and a Canon EOS 60D with a Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM lens), two tripods, two hot lights, and two sil­ver umbrellas.

We tested two light­ing sce­nar­ios; the first one was a typ­i­cal cross light­ing set up very com­monly used by still pho­tog­ra­phers. Bobbi explained that this “gives you two sets of high­lights and two sets of shad­ows, and does not look nat­ural. It cre­ates more con­trast and brings no depth to the sub­ject.”  This, she added, is not the best way to do it, and explained that cre­at­ing dimen­sion with video could be achieved with the equip­ment we had.  “You still need to have the same sen­si­bil­ity in video that you have with stills.  A lot of peo­ple for­get that, and light every­thing flat.”

The sec­ond sce­nario we tested had a much bet­ter result.  We set up one main light with a sil­ver umbrella frontally fac­ing us, and used the acces­sory light as both a hair light and back­ground light, to cre­ate more dimen­sion. Bobbi’s main cri­tique was to use a larger white umbrella to spread the light evenly on two sub­jects and to achieve bet­ter skin tones. She also expressed to us the impor­tance of stay­ing cur­rent as an artist and to keep your­self immersed by work­ing with a vari­ety of people.

Com­ing soon, we will be post­ing some images as well as the light­ing set up we used for this video.

Many thanks to Bobbi Lane for tak­ing part in our Con­ver­sa­tions with Friends. To see her work, and reg­is­ter for her excit­ing upcom­ing work­shops (includ­ing Valentine’s Day in Venice dur­ing the Car­ni­val!) click here.

Our wine today was 2009 Duo­rum Douro Tons de Duo­rum, from the beau­ti­ful region of Douro in Por­tu­gal. “Firm and min­er­ally, with good power behind the dark plum, cherry and spice fla­vors. Notes of dust and dark choco­late linger on the refined fin­ish. Drink now through 2016.”

If you want to par­tic­i­pate in our con­ver­sa­tions or would like us to cover a spe­cific topic just post a com­ment or shoot us an email.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 20th, 2012 at 08:03. It is filed under Digital Cinema, Education, HDSLR Cinema, Photography, Portraits, Visuals and tagged with , , , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.