For Gael’s second look, I wanted to create a bold portrait against a yellow backdrop. The challenge was that the backdrop was fairly short and didn’t quite reach the floor, so I had to limit the framing to roughly below the knee rather than shooting full body.
I started with two Elinchrom indirect strip softboxes, one on camera left and one on camera right. The camera-left strip became the main light, while the camera-right strip created a subtle edge light. Then I boomed a 100cm Elinchrom Deep Octabox directly over the front of the set to act as fill.
With Rachel helping on set, we dialed in each light individually. I added a grid to the overhead octabox hoping it would darken the background, and while the effect wasn’t dramatic, it did help slightly. To create more separation behind Gael, I added a fourth light with a grid reflector aimed at the yellow backdrop.
In retrospect, that background light was a little too bright. Since it was already at minimum power, I either should have moved it farther back or raised the power of the other lights so the background exposure fell into a better relationship with Gael.
Once the lighting was close, the rest of the shoot became about refining the pose: turning his body, adjusting his feet, watching the angle of his face, and making small changes to the main and edge lights so his arms, neck, and legs were shaped evenly. The final image came together through those small corrections rather than one big dramatic change.
