February Inspiration Roundup
In January, I ordered a new set of three large LED panels. In the first week of February, they arrived. I had some loose ideas in my head about how I wanted to use these panels, but I certainly wasn’t expecting them to make their way into almost every photoshoot I did this month. I downloaded the partner app that would allow me to change the settings of each light remotely, including colour, saturation, and brightness.
The first time I used these panels, I set them up in a dark green, fucsia, and icy blue colour pallet. I placed them in a triangle around the model at varying heights, even distances apart. I got some cool results, but nothing to write home about. I found that I had better results when I placed coloured gels over the lights, as it was hard to get a nicely saturated tone using just the light’s settings.
I shot with this colour combo a few more times in early February before I began experimenting with incorporating red into the mix instead of fucsia. This turned out to be a breakthrough moment for me, creatively speaking.
The red, blue, and green lights interact with each other to create a full rainbow spectrum. In areas where all of the lights overlap, the light appears white. This creates a beautiful colour-contouring effect that flatters the model’s muscles and bone structure.
For my third shoot of the month, I decided to set up both my strobe lights and the colourful LED panels and experiment with using them together. I set the strobe brightness to its dimmest setting, and the LEDs to their brightest. I experimented with different exposure times until I found a sweet spot. The strobe would flash, and I would move the camera slightly while the shutter was still open. The results were very exciting. The light of the strobe would freeze the subject in the frame, while the LED lights and delayed shutter would create trails of rainbow light depending on how I moved the camera.
Now that I have found the right settings for this technique, I intend to experiment with it quite a bit more in the coming months. I see a lot of potential for this style of mildly chaotic light painting. Many of my clients are looking for unique and creative images to improve their social media presence, and I believe this technique could be just the thing to add an unexpected element to their feeds.
Although I wanted to experiment with this lighting technique non-stop, I did have a few shoots this month that worked better with classic white strobe lighting. I photographed two models in a variety of rhinestoned dresses for a local clothing brand, as well as a musician with two different rhinestone bikinis. These shoots wound up being the perfect opportunity to employ my star filter, which creates tiny four-pointed stars when the light hits something shiny. The bright flash of the strobe was perfect for creating tiny galaxies out of these glittery outfits.
Between the beautiful rainbow lighting and the glittery, glamorous outfits I shot this month, I was able to take a wide variety of photos and experiment with creative new editing techniques.
I feel recharged creatively after a relatively slow January. I am armed and ready to take on another full month of shooting in March.