Joan Santa: Portrait/Boudoir Photography—Joan and I wanted to create a fun series of Santa themed images for the holidays. The lighting scheme was borrowed and adapted from our friend and studio-mate, Brett. The lighting was simple: window-light acted as the source of what would become the main and fill lights while also acting as back, hair and from lights. Brett’s suggestion was to use large white cards as reflectors to bounce the light back into Joan for the main lights. We modified his suggestion by using a large silver card to act as the “main” reflector (camera right) and two additional large white cards to surround the set and provide a fill source. The silver was a little more reflective and added some more “pop” as a main light. The white cards provided a beautifully soft light to fill the shadow areas. The difference in light quantity between the window light illuminating Joan’s hair and body to the exposure value of the reflected light on her face (the basis for the camera exposure) was due to the inverse-square law. The light illuminating Joan’s face traveled further and was therefore “dimmer” than the same light hitting her back. I was also way out of my comfort zone here hand holding the camera at f 1.8! We got some some great images, but missed the focus on several because of the extremely shallow depth of field. Merry Christmas! Camera: Canon 5DMII. Exposure f1.8-2.2, 1/160th of a second, ISO 500-640.
