Lights, Camera, Capture: Creative Lighting Techniques for Digital Photographers

Author Bob Davis is a photographer whose high-profile clients include Oprah Winfrey and Eva Longoria, and whose work has appeared in Time, O Magazine, and People. Along with his invaluable professional advice, this beautiful full-color book includes a DVD featuring portions of his workshop curriculum. He covers the elements of lighting and shares his two-strobe technique that will enable you to create studio-quality lighting anywhere with only minimal equipment.

• High-profile photographer Bob Davis is especially known for his lighting techniques; this book shares his advice on lighting for professional photographers and serious amateurs
• Covers all the key elements of photographic lighting, with informative illustrations and lighting grids
• Details the author's pioneering two-strobe technique that reduces the amount of equipment a photographer must carry to a shoot and dramatically lowers equipment costs
• Features professional tips and stunning full-color images
• 60-Minute DVD includes video from the author's three-day lighting and photography workshop

Lights, Camera, Capture: Creative Lighting Techniques for Digital Photographersoffers your professional advice worth many times the cost of the book.

Top 10 Lighting Tips
Amazon-exlcusive content from author Bob Davis

1. Become a seeker of light. My lighting improved leaps and bounds once I began to notice and study light and how it creates mood, shapes, and defines textures. It’s all about light. I take mental notes when light catches my eye. I love the way the sunlight reflects off my stone counter tops and creates beautiful patterns on the kitchen cabinets. I then think of how can I emulate that.

2. Take visual notes using your cell phone camera. I love using my iPhone for this. Most people have a camera on their cell phone; it’s great for capturing those wonderful moments when the light catches your eye. Later, practice recreating that light with any type of light source, flashlight, shop light, strobe or video light.

3. Practice, practice, practice… I use a teddy bear and a flashlight to see how the light and shadows change as I move the light around the teddy bear. Then, I try to create that same look using an off-camera flash.

4. If you find using an off-camera flash a challenge because you can’t see the light, try using a flashlight as a modeling light. Point the flashlight in the same direction as your flash head. For a long time, I used a Mag light rubber banded to my Speedlight until I became comfortable using my flash.

5. Use a diffuser over your flash and, if at all possible, bounce your flash. Even the pop-up flash on a point-and-shoot can be diffused using facial tissue. If your flash has an adjustable head, try bouncing it off the ceiling by pointing the flash head upwards, or even to the side if there is a wall near by. Review your results, and make a mental note.

6. Whenever possible, get your flash off-camera. You can create depth and dimension by getting one flash with a bounce diffuser about 45 degrees to the left or right of your camera. This creates a nice modeling light to shape your subjects, and looks more natural than direct on-camera flash.

7. Read you camera and flash manual. I know they read like bad stereo instructions written for engineers, but if you read one page, and then practice what you’ve just read with your camera and flash, soon you will master all of the functions of your flash.

8. Use fresh batteries; even better, use rechargeable high capacity batteries. This alone will greatly improve your overall flash consistency.

9. Use flash outside on a bright sunny day to fill in the shadows under the eyes, hence the term “fill flash”. Photograph people in open shade to avoid them having to squint, and remember to turn on your flash to fill in their face with light. Almost all point-and-shoot cameras allow you to use your flash outside. Give it a try, and see how it puts that sparkle in their eyes.

10. You don’t always need a flash, I love lighting people using a reflector. There are many types of collapsible reflectors. You can use anything as a reflector. I once created a reflector in a pinch by using a paper plate and covered it with aluminum foil. It works! Remember it’s all about the light. Have fun, there is no wrong way to light; there are no rules written in stone. Create the light you want!

Tips for Using Strobe Lights

Strobes give you an incredible sense of flexibility in your approach to light, largely due to the many different ways you can manipulate and adjust their output.

Your flexibility increases significantly if you are able to move the flash away from the camera's hotshoe, because you can position it exactly where you would like it. Add more flashes to the mix, and you’re straying into more creative territory… This is your cue to take control of your lighting! Create the light you want anywhere.

I envisioned a romantic taxi cab ride, but I wanted to capture that feeling of motion, twilight and love. I like to think outside the box, literally! For this picture of the newly engaged couple, I mounted a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, in aperture priority mode, with a 16 – 35mm wide angle zoom lens at 18mm, 1/8th sec with f/4.0 at ISO 160. Here’s where it gets fun, so hold on and lets go for a ride. I mounted the camera on the outside trunk deck of the taxi using a Delkin Fat Gecko suction cup mount, and triggered the camera using a Pocket Wizard remote control. I used a Canon ST-E2 Speedlite Transmitter and Radiopopper transmitter and receiver to fire the remote Canon 580EX II Speedlite, in ETTL II mode, inside the cab. The Speedlite was diffused using a Lightsphere light modifier, creating the light I wanted. I choose aperture priority because of the changing available light as we drove through the streets of Chicago. I knew the camera would choose a slow shutter speed because of the low ISO, giving that sense of motion I had in my mind’s eye.

I’m always trying to tell a story through my pictures. I did the formal, “safe” pictures of the bride and groom first, and then I asked if they were up for something a little more creative. I got the green light, so I quickly changed from soft light-modifiers, such umbrellas or Lightsphere, to hard light. Using creative hard light, you can create a dramatic mood. I was feeling a little Casablanca; you know the old, classic black-and-white film with Humphrey Bogart? I had only a few minutes to create the look. I placed the groom in the background, and put spot light on him with one Canon 580EX II in ETTL II mode in group A. I modified the light using a HonlPhoto Snoot to vignette the light: focusing it on him, not the background. Next, I gave the bride the yellow flower, and asked her to give me a little attitude. I had her look into the second Canon 580EX II in ETTL II mode in group B, modified with a small beauty dish. The beauty dish creates a softer light than a snoot. I used a Canon EOS 1D Mark IV in manual mode, with a 70 – 200mm IS II lens at 70mm, 1/250th sec with f/2.8 at ISO 200. The Speedlites were triggered using a Canon ST-E2 Speedlite Transmitter and Radiopopper transmitter and receivers. I choose the long lens to compress the space, and an aperture of f/2.8 focusing on the bride’s face for a shallow depth-of-field blurring the groom. I loved the image and so did the bride and groom.