Strobism : 5 lights & a musician
I had an opportunity to photograph a very talented musician, Charles Nathaniel in Malaysia last year. He had a fantastic collection of guitars and I wanted to feature it but decided that it would be too distracting. I wanted to concentrate on Charles, to get the right mood and capture his emotion.
Whenever I photograph someone or something, I always think about a place I’ve been to and how I can create that same lighting. After all, the point of using lighting in your photograph is not only to bring the exposure up to a suitable level for the ISO you are using but rather to create a mood.
5 lights & a musician
* Light also means flash or strobe.
One thing I always try to avoid is to have any strobe light sitting on the hot-shoe of my camera. Move that light off your camera and your photograph will improve immensely. I don’t care if you move it upwards or downwards. Just don’t blast away at your subject with flat light coming from your on-camera flash. You will see that even the paparazzi avoid having the flash unit on the camera. The flash is always attached to some kind of bracket.
My location photography kit usually includes 4 units of Nikon SB-900 Speedlight and 2 units of Nikon SB-800 Speedlight. Part of my kit also includes the Nikon SU-800 Wireless Speedlight Commander. I do use the PocketWizard wireless triggering system but only when the distance between the strobe units and camera is too great for the Nikon SU-800 or Nikon SB-800′s signal to reach.
In this particular portrait session, I arrived on location and immediately took stock of my surroundings. One of the first things I do is take an available light shot of the room in order to gauge the sort of lighting I’m working with. This has to be done with the correct ISO setting. In this case, I had decided to shoot at ISO 200, which meant that I wouldn’t be getting much help from the room lighting.
Low ISO setting on the camera, low available light and a desire to create a specific mood meant a multiple lighting setup. In a nutshell; strobism or strobist. Somehow, I’ve never really liked the word, strobist. Sounds like something illegal like flasher!
I wanted the shot to look like a bar scene. As is usual at bars or pubs, the lighting on the musician would come from spotlights.
Referring to the diagram, the SB-800 at position no.1 is the fill light. All this light does is add a bit of fill lighting to the subject. That’s why it’s called fill light 
The light at position no.2 is the main light. It is a Nikon SB-900 with a HonlPhoto Speed Snoot. You can see how concentrated the light is on the subject’s face. This light is also picking up details in the guitar and his jeans nicely.
The light at position No.3 is a Nikon SB-800 Speedlight with a HonlPhoto 1/2 CTO color gel. The light is attached to a Manfrotto backlite stand. It is also pointed downwards at the floor. You can see its effect on the floor that has a slight orange tint.
Light No.4 is placed behind the wall. It is also covered with a HonlPhoto Full CTO color gel and is lighting up the cabinets to the right of the photograph.
Light No.5 is visible in the background. I wanted the light to look like a spotlight. Shooting at f/3.2 allowed focus to remain on the subject. This light is also fitted with a Full CTO color gel and the effect can be seen by the orange rim lighting around the subject’s hair and shoulders.
EXPOSURE: I did not even have to use a light meter during this session. All of the Nikon Speedlights were set to Remote and controlled from the Nikon SU-800 Speedlight Controller mounted on the camera. Adjusting the power of each individual flash was done through the SU-800. Nikon does limit the number of groups to 3 but within each group, you can practically assign 3 units of Speedlight. I could have also used a Nikon SB-800 or SB-900 Speedlight as a Master unit.
What’s great about using multiple lights is that you can create almost any kind of atmosphere or mood. I could have easily gone for a high-key effect rather than the moody low-key effect on Charles. I’ve rarely had to use more than 6 units of flash at any one time although there was that time in Shanghai when I used 7 units.
Working with lighting also means you are not at the mercy of noise from having to shoot at high ISO. Movement of your subject is also not an issue. You are in complete control of the image.
