Tag Archives: fashion lighting tutorial

Heffner Models Fashion Shoot with Satin Panel Lighting

By Thorsten | Published November 28, 2010

The white satin and nylon panels are the best kept lighting secret in the fashion and glamour photography business. In this lighting tutorial, I will teach you how I use the white satin panel to create a low-key lighting fashion shoot. This fashion shoot is for two local designers, Madina Vadache and Robert Whaley Designs. The lighting setup works equally well for the creative editorial portrait photographer.

My designer friend Dr. Robert Whaley asked me to photography four of his designs. The models are from Heffner Model Management in Seattle. The first model, Elina Ivanova, was on ‘America’s Next Top Model’. These 5 images easily became a favorite on several photography websites. I was kinda dumb-founded by all the requests for the lighting diagrams, so here they are.

Elina Ivanova satin panel low-key fashion lighting

Elina Ivanova satin panel low-key fashion lighting

This is a very simple and basic low-key lighting setup. The white satin panel is on the right and the strobe head is placed fairly close to the fabric. Be careful to not catch the fabric on fire, modeling lights get REALLY HOT.

On my left side I placed a second 5′ x 8′ white satin panel to act as a fill-reflector. Dark dresses such as this dress need a bit of kicker fill. For a white wedding dress you may not even need a fill reflector.

As you will notice in the lighting diagram, the strobe head is placed directly to the side of the model….and she is facing towards the light.

Try experimenting by moving the strobe head to the left or right of the panel to create a Rembrandt (triangle of light below the eye socket). With this simple lighting setup I can create a side-light or a Rembrandt lighting pattern just by moving the strobe head a few feet across the white satin panel……in seconds…..and no need to re-meter the lights!

Contrast ratios are easily controlled by the second white satin panel to the camera left. Additionally, we can control the size of the light on the model by moving the right-side strobe head further or closer to the white satin panel. Try doing that with a softbox! Continue reading »

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Location Fashion Shoot Tutorial with Lighting Diagrams

By Thorsten | Published July 31, 2010

The location fashion shoot presents additional requirements over the studio fashion shoot. For this location shoot we needed a gasoline generator to power our 1000w/s Photogenic mono lights and we needed a semi-private public beach access. Tim and I spent the morning meeting with the two wardrobe designers and scouted the West Seattle Alki Beach later that afternoon.

Our two lighting modifiers consisted of a 22″ Beauty Dish and a large 5′x8′ Ripstop Nylon Panel. We also used a combination of the two modifiers in unison for a very nice light quality that you should try for outdoor portraits! Watch the video and pay special attention to the image of the yellow dress and purple dress. This BD/Nylon Panel combo provides a beautiful soft light quality and the skintones just glow.

This video features Seattle wardrobe designers, Kimmi Designs and Mac Fashion House. Our friend, Kay Matthews did the hair and makeup styling.

We use very simple lighting, less is more and appears natural. No photoshop fixes for lighting, just a simple film curve and color toning.

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