How to use hard light for portraits with Mark Wallace

Tap to view in full-size

One of the most common things that photographers do when they get to use a studio strobe is they take the standard 7 inch reflector off the strobe head and put a soft box instead. So most of the time our clients do not even shoot with the 7 inch modifiers or snoots, or any other modifiers for a hard light, thus missing out on a lot of opportunities. Today we will study setups using just the hard light, with photographer Mark Wallace and Adorama TV .

No modifiers.

In the first setup Mark uses a couple of strobes Profoto D1’s with out any modifiers. This setup is especially powerful if you are lighting for black and white photography. The key light is in front of the model, shooting from above. The kicker light is to camera’s left, behind the model, shooting from the high to illuminate to model’s back. The only thing that Mark is trying to avoid is the hard shadow on the wall behind the model. To hide the shadow we will be moving the key light to the side while pushing the shadow out of frame. While you might get away with hiding the shadow on the wall out of the frame, you would still need to take into consideration the shadows on the model’s face. Please keep in mind that it is NOT a bad thing to have shadows on the face. On the contrary, it might add a dramatic effect to the photo. To play with the shadow have your model turn the face towards or against the light. The more directional the camera position is compare to light the less shadows you would see on model’s face.  

With 7 inch modifier.

With the 7 inch modifier on the key light Mark is shaping the light to have a nice and smooth vignette on the wall instead having the light all over the place. The model is placed right in front of the light. The camera shoots to the left from the light, eliminating the background. In this example, we will use the reflector to aid the modifier and fill in light. Placing the reflector right behind the model at the angle gives a little bit of kick to the model’s hair. With the reflector the model’s hair has some highlights. Without it, the hair falls into black.

Using hard light in black&white photography

In the last example Mark is shooting black and white. Still using one store with 7 inch modifier, the photographer placed it to the camera’s left, pretty close to the model, thus creating some hard dramatic shadows on the model’s face. Using the black side on the v-flat behind the model, the photographer is going for a nice dark background.   Watch the full tutorial video of David Bergman for Adorama TV here: