You have mail...

A few days ago, I received an email from Bruce McCammon. With his permission, I am posting an excerpt from his email and my response here. Since his question was about photographic lighting, I think the answer may be useful to others as well.

“…I was a bit taken back when I saw the recent blog entries of the yoga poses since I have a very strong impression of you as a landscape photographer. No matter... the yoga images are wonderful. If you had time and inclination to respond I'd appreciate any insight you could offer to the lighting and setup you used to get these shots. Any information you can provide would be very much appreciated. Thank you... -Bruce"

My response to his question follows.

"The lighting setup we used was pretty standard. We used three slave flash units. Two flashes were bounced from umbrellas in front of the models – one on each side. These were intended to provide soft, even lighting over our two models. A third flash was suspended from the ceiling behind the models. It was directed towards a white wall (we often hang a sheet if the wall is not white). This ceiling flash lights the background enough to burn it out completely. It’s important to leave some space between the wall and the ceiling flash in order to allow the light to spread and burn out enough area. We make sure our forward flashes are set correctly before setting up the ceiling flash in order to avoid screwing up our metering with all that back light. Also – make sure your models are far enough in front of the ceiling flash to ensure that the light bouncing of the wall doesn’t overexpose the edges of their faces or hair. It takes some experimentation to get it right, but it’s not difficult. I often shoot in my living room with this simple setup. It’s perfect for portraits and stock photography."

The following link will take you to Bruce McCammon’s website:
www.bpmphotography.com.

You’ll find some beautiful portraits and landscapes. I think you’ll all be impressed.

Bruce – thanks for allowing me to use this question on my blog. Good luck with your photography!