Lighting The Catalog Shot
November 12th, 2010Photography lighting for catalogs is different than lighting for advertising or an editorial. You rarely get the chance to get creative because the objective is to make the clothes look good and show details in the fabric. Many fashion designers use some very nice fabrics and the designers goal is to sell their clothes to buyers of department stores and get them seen in magazines. Therefore the photographer doesn’t really have the freedom to use radical lighting ratios with dramatic shadows. So what kind of lighting is recommended for shooting catalogs ? Well I like very nice Rembrandt lighting. This is where you see the triangle of light under either the left or right eye. The reason I like to use Rembrandt lighting is because it isn’t flat and it isn’t too dramatic and shows the details of the clothes at the same time. Now for this shoot you can see I did a little variation of Rembrandt. It’s not a perfect typical triangle of light under the eye. You can see the shadow is more opened up so there is a little more light on the model’s face. I chose to do this variation because when I originally showed the designer the actual Rembrandt set up, she felt it was a little too shadowed. As you can see in the images that the model’s LEFT side is in a light shadow. Look at the tighter shot and you see her LEFT cheek looks sculpted and my variation of Rembrandt lighting.
I accomplished this by placing a black V-Flat close to the model about three feet away from her. This gives you a negative fill. What’s happening is the large soft box is feathered away from the model a bit and some of the light is actually bouncing into and off of the white wall that is to the left of the soft box. Then that light hits the model, then hits the black V-Flat which soaks up some of the light giving you the negative fill and a nice shadow. You control the darkness of the shadow by moving the V-Flat closer into the model or farther away. Closer in gives you a darker shadow and moving it away lightens the shadow. So what’s cool is I only used one light for this ! I combined the natural light and one strobe to create a lighting scheme that isn’t that flat ugly typical catalog lighting like you see in JC Penny. Please ask me questions and comment ! Click the lighting diagram and you will see it larger.
You can learn techniques like this and much more when you take my two day one on one private fashion photography work shop. Click here for more info.
Tags: catalogs, digital photography, jason christopher, lighting scheme, photography lighting, photography workshop, photography workshops, Rembrandt lighting, technique
November 12th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
So…how do you avoid lens flare, lol
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Jason Christopher Reply:
November 12th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Hi Nick !
What you see in the windows isn’t what it really looked like. The natural light coming through the windows is not very bright. You can actually see the trees and city buildings. So in order to make the windows that bright I used a slow shutter speed and and wider aperture to mix the ambient light from the windows and strobe. My exposure was 1/80th @ F/5.6 and ISO 400.
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November 12th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jason Christopher and Jason Christopher , Leo P. Leo P said: RT @fashion_shooter: Lighting The Catalog Shot. Includes a lighting diagram ! http://fb.me/KYFFeMR6 [...]
November 12th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
ThanksIt looks as though the sun is shining right into it. It’s a great mix of ambient and electronic light. Were the lights at an extremely low power?
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Jason Christopher Reply:
November 12th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
Thank you buddy. My aperture was 5.6 so yes that’s pretty low power.
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November 12th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
I love when Ambient and artificial mix…sometimes I have difficulties balancing…i think this might help JasonChristopherPenny lol
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Jason Christopher Reply:
November 15th, 2010 at 2:17 pm
LOL Bryce. Well now you shoot digital so practice until you get it perfect BEFORE you get a call for a job from a client that wants this look
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November 13th, 2010 at 4:59 am
Great post Jason. I tried a similar scenario the other day, but I couldn’t get my window light that bright until I was down to about 1/10 second. Don’t recall the f/stop offhand. Also, I’m curious if you gelled the lights here?
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Jason Christopher Reply:
November 15th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
Thank you Doug. These were my settings. 1/80th @ F/5.6 and ISO 400. You have to use a high ISO so you are able to use at least an 80th shutter speed and at least a 5.6. I didn’t want to shoot much wider than 5.6 and slower than a 60th. Therefore I had to use a high ISO which in this case was ISO 400.
Nope did not gel the lights. It doesn’t look like I gelled them. What color gel does it look like I used ?
Thank you for your comment.
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Doug Reply:
November 15th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Thanks Jason. It doesn’t actually look like you gelled them. I was just curious if, given the time of day and color variations of light, if you ever gel even when shooting flash against daylight. I have inexpensive strobes and I think I probably get some color inconsistencies in my flash. Love the blog. Keep it up.
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November 16th, 2010 at 11:08 am
Thanks for the great information, it makes me want to try it for myself! I would love to see more posts like this!
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Jason Christopher Reply:
November 17th, 2010 at 11:11 am
Hi Jayson,
You’re welcome buddy ! I’m glad you like the post.
Cheers !
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November 18th, 2010 at 11:44 am
lovely clean images, thanks for posting the set up too, always good to see how these things are done.
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Jason Christopher Reply:
November 18th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
John thank you and you are very welcome
I invite you to go through my archives where you can find much more information.
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November 20th, 2010 at 7:55 am
These are great! I was just curious about the floor – Is that what was there or was it a setup for the shoot?
Thanks!
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Jason Christopher Reply:
November 23rd, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Thank you Sawyer.
The floor is just cement painted white. It’s all part of the studio.
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November 21st, 2010 at 9:17 am
awesome post jason. i’m a big fan of the ambient and artificial mix.
can’t wait to see more!
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December 28th, 2010 at 11:35 am
Incredibly simple!
Thanks for sharing Jason!
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Jason Christopher Reply:
March 8th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
You’re welcome buddy
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January 26th, 2011 at 1:57 am
Great post. Thank you very much for sharing the information. Photos are excellent!
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March 22nd, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Great Post again Jason. Thank you for sharing.
I have said this before but still… your simple setups sometimes.. ok… mostly surprise me
… its great.
When you think of a ‘commercial’ paid shoot, people tend to think of fancy equipment and multiple lights… and yet here you are doing it with one light and a window
.. great stuff.
Also one question … how big was the soft box you used here?
(sorry if I missed spotting it above)
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Jason Christopher Reply:
September 6th, 2011 at 3:49 pm
Thank you Joey ! The soft box was an xtra large. Six feet tall.
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April 19th, 2011 at 1:34 pm
This is great. Simple, yet effective.
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May 28th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
I really loved the tutorial diagram here, it sheds light on good lighting setups.
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