Lighting Tutorial: It’s a Hardbox Light

A stunning headshot of a black male model near Chicago Illinois

Over time, I have seen many images where a pattern is projected onto someone’s face, and I’ve always struggled to simulate this type of lighting. My attempts usually resulted in poorly defined shapes and not the sort of razor-sharp edges I was expecting.

Fashion Photography: DIY Light Saver

Chicago fashion photographer tuxedo male model 60616

Adapting the look of LED or Fluorescent tube backgrounds for still photography with a DIY approach using softboxes, a v-flat, a knife and three Profoto lights.

Fill is not a person, but he is your friend

Using passive and active fill to madimize shadow detail and dynamic range

As photographers we might obsess about this modifier or that one, believe me I have, but often times we fall short when it comes to shadow detail. This is something I struggle with from time to time when shooting in a new room and every shoot poses its own set of problems, so the purpose of this post is to share some basic concepts that I hope will help you maximize dynamic range and develop more details in your depictions.