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A few photos from a wedding where I shot as the second photographer.

Usually, when I shoot paper I am not using a camera. That combination of words is not generally something with which I associate reproduction and cameras, but rather something I tend to associate with destruction and firearms. Today I took a different approach to help my Mom out with some products she’d just completed to put in scrapbook she made for a new Eagle Scout.

I thought back to one of the very first things I ever attempted once I discovered the Strobist blog and bought my very first hotshoe strobe with a coiled hotshoe to Vivitar sync cable. That attempt was not very successful, but was meant to show how shooting light across a piece of paper would reveal texture not typically seen by casting shadows with the imperfections of the page and depressions left by the writing process. Back in those days I lacked light stands, or any real understanding of how light works. Today, things would be a bit different.

Since I knew I wanted to capture the detail of any smaller text on these pages, I set my base exposure at around f/8 as my aperture. I did not want to have to turn the strobes to full blast for anything to save on recycle time as I’d be shooting many pages, so I ran my ISO up to 200. I also ran at full sync to kill the ambient light. Once that was all said and done, I built the exposure. I knew I wanted a good even exposure across the page, and without a light tent or a softbox I could hang over top I used the next best thing – the ceiling. I also knew I wanted to have depth, as a flat exposure from the top would be just that – flat. The next bit I just played with, but it worked well so I stuck with it. I put two lights on the same stand. One on top in the normal position, bounced into a white umbrella to give me some soft texture across the page, and another super clamped to the legs of the stand, gridded, and aimed right at paper level directly across the page for hard texture.

The setup looked a little something like this:

The lighting setup for shooting paper and maintaining texture.

With an end result of this:

The final result

Sometimes you run into a situation where you a) have very little space, and b) need very soft and even light. If you happen to have two lights, you can make your life very simple. Again this wonderful tidbit originated (for me anyway) with the Strobist blog, but I’ll share it again just in case you’re scared to dive into things there.

The short and skinny is simple. Get two light stands, and two shoot through umbrellas. Raise one of the umbrellas up high and angle it down towards your subjects. Make the bottom of that umbrellas a few inches above where the top of your lens will be. Take your bottom umbrella and put it under the top umbrella, leaving maybe a foot or two of free space, and angle it up some. To do this you’ll need to have the legs on one stand flat and wide, and the other raised up and narrow. Weighing down the top stand is wise if there’s going to be any potential for wind, or people moving about the area. Set your exposure as you normally would, leaving both lights at the same power will give you what almost looks like a giant light bank. You can mess with lighting ratios a bit for a more three dimensional effect, I usually just shoot both strobes at the same power.

The setup looks something like this:

Stack your umbrellas

The result looks a little like this:

Clamshell Lighting Result

For the benefit of anyone interested in off-camera lighting, but hesitant to dive into the greatness that is Strobist.com, I have taken a few photos to demonstrate very basic lighting in both a three light, and single light setup. Setting these shots up took less than 5 minutes, and can be done literally anywhere. If you are a photographer and you want to offer more, for less, I would strongly advise buying at least one of the wireless Strobist kits available at Midwest Photo Exchange.

This is straight out of the camera, and while the background is not completely white throughout, fixing the right edge is trivial at best. Even a tighter crop would fix the “problem” in an instant.

I'll break down this photo in this post.

The background:

First thing first, if you have access to a white (or grey) wall, you can do almost anything. Firing a strobe into said wall will give you a perfect background for headshots, and just about anything else. You can also gel the strobe for different color backgrounds, or do the same later in post. I like taking whichever approach requires the least work after the fact, so I go for gels whenever possible.

Strobe + Wall = Background!

Popping light into the background can also help add texture and help your subject pop out. In a single light situation, I am generally always inclined to use that light on a background surface for a different dynamic. Sure, you could bounce into the ceiling for a nice soft light – but that is not very exciting. Sometimes it is totally appropriate, but sometimes it just is not even possible (think of a black ceiling – your bouncing will not do much there). Examples of both techniques below.

Single light, into the background.

Single strobe, bounced into the ceiling.

Lighting the subject:

Back to the insta-studio setup. Once you have the background situated, you will need to get some light onto your subject. One of the easiest, and fastest solutions is to put two light sources at 45˚ to your subject’s left and right, and have one be providing about twice as much light as the other. You can get far more specific, but where lighting ratios are concerned, that will get you in the ball park.

If you are cramped for space, as is often the case, use a shoot-through umbrella for the main light and bounce into an umbrella for fill. The stands will be in roughly the same position, but the fill umbrella ends up roughly twice as far away as the main light. I do this often to keep both 285HVs at the same (and usually lowest) power setting so my refresh times are the same for both lights. If you are shooting AC monolights, this is not nearly as much of a problem.

Umbrellas setup as described above.

Now all of that is easy to see in the setup shot, but for some (myself included) it helps to see exactly what each light is doing. Pay attention to the captions below (series shot at ISO 200, f8, 1/200s):

No lights firing

Background light only - note that some fill has spilled in as it bounced back off the umbrellas

Main and Background Light

Fill and Background Light

Main and Fill Light

You have seen this already. All three lights firing.

That is about all there is to it. If you seek more information, I will again direct you to Strobist.com because there is far more information there. This is just the tip of the iceberg. When you dive below the surface, you will come to love light. You will also start to see everything in a different way. Pretty cool!