I promised a “how to” on my last post so here you go.

I believe that it is important to have intention before you go out and shoot.  I often go as far as to break out the sketch book and sketch out my ideas before going on assignment.  I use the resulting sketches to open up the creative process let my brain puke all of my good and sometimes not so good ideas out on to the page.  This way I have something tangible to refer back to when I’m on location.

That said, the “actor shot” I referred to in my last post was not one that I took to the sketch books.  I knew exactly what I wanted it to look like from the second I agreed to the assignment.  I wanted the shot to look like it was shot in the scorching desert environment, sun in the frame, minimal earth and shot from below to give the subject the larger than life feel.  Very intentional.  Here’s how I did it.

This was an “actor shot,” and it needed to look like it was shot on the set of a movie, with real cinematic lighting.    Short of a Hollywood budget and seven trucks full of all the gear a guy could dream about, I’ll show you how to create cinematic lighting using only one artificial light.

The sun is a powerful player in this shot so let’s start there.  Place (your primary light source) the sun behind the subject and use its super atomic powers to create a rim light effect.  Expose for the rim highlight to be almost white.  This will create your ambient exposure.  You want this rim light to be almost blown out for this technique and that’s why we’re using the sun to do it, the sun is your most powerful light source.  When you have the sun as a light source go with it, fighting it will only cause headaches.

Cinematic lighting map

The sun behind your subject will leave your subject mostly backlit and in a silhouette.  Next, use an artificial light source (I like my new Elinchrom Ranger with a bare head) directly opposite the sun.  Balance this light to 1/3 of a stop just under the ambient exposure.  This will result in  bringing your subject just up out of the silhouette while leaving a shadow stripe right down the middle of his/her body.

The shadow stripe will look really weird but it means your just one step away from the goods.  The last step is to use the sun as your third light source as well as your primary.  Huh?  Now take a large reflector (I use a 8′x8′ ScrimJim) and bounce the sun into the subject to erase the shadow stripe and fill under Conan’s arm pits, eye sockets and buck teeth.  I knew from the start that when I put the image into the computer that I would color balance it to an amber tint so I used the gold reflector cloth.  Remember I wanted the whole thing to look hot, 110 degrees…..gold.

Remember to bracket your ambient exposure to play with the mood of the shot.

I hope you have fun with this one.