How to use the umbrella for editorial high-fashion photography. The umbrella is not dead and this fashion lighting tutorial is the proof. Later, we also demonstrate how to use a beauty dish/satin panel setup for beautiful lookbook fashion lighting.

Four days ago, last Monday, Tim and I photographed Madina Vadache’s Spring 2011 Collection. The week before, we all met and had a short production meeting. We discussed which model we would like to use as well as the shoot location and the overall look for the catalog or lookbook images.

Madina also wanted a few editorial fashion images for the “splash page” of her new website. For the editorial images, we decided to use the lobby area of her condo building. The lookbook setting would be a corner of her design studio, a modern looking window with white blinds.

We can only show a few images, as the collection has not been released for public viewing.

The lighting diagrams are listed below:

Fill & Backlight Umbrella Fashion Lighting Diagram

Key & Fill Umbrella Fashion Lighting Diagram

Shoot-Through Umbrella Fashion Lighting Diagram

Tim and I had to work pretty fast on the editorial images. We used a basic architectural lighting technique, bouncing umbrellas off of white surfaces. For the Key Light on the model, we slid the mono-head all the way forward on the shaft, giving us a soft spotlight effect. The 3 editorial images took about 1 hour to light and photograph.

For the lookbook images we used the 5′ x 8′ White Satin Panel/22″ Beauty Dish setup. We added a black cloth to the lower half of the panel to reduce glare from the wood floor tiles.

Beauty Dish/Satin Panel Catalog Lighting Diagram

Simple lighting and zero Photoshop post production for lighting fixes.

Help support these tutorials. Please consider a donation.

Popularity: 55%