Don't have a studio? What if I told you, you don't need one? In this video, I show you how to make any location your studio fast.
I love, working on location, but you may sometimes have clients asking for headshots portraits that have a neutral or plain background. This isn't a problem and is actually easy to achieve. No backdrop is needed (or sort of), you can use only one light, and you can do this anywhere!
For example these basketball portrait shots... we were indoors on a basketball court and I wanted to make a few portrait shots with just my subject and nothing recognizable in the background.
I have talked about in the past, I love to underexpose my background ( How I create my dramatic pictures). Here, you pretty much do the same but instead of underexposing, you just kill completely the ambient light and darken your background.
Your light just has to be strong enough to correctly expose your main subject and Voilà you have your shot that could have been made in a studio (but it wasn't).
Make sure you are not too close to a wall to avoid the reflection/ bounce of your light and you are good to go.
But what if you are working in a small bedroom with obstacles, objects, windows, and walls everywhere?
Close the curtains find the largest or create enough room to at least use a 50mm lens... and I am sure you can find anything that can basically cut the light and be used as a backdrop. Of course the darker the better, here, we used a black folding screen (paravent) during this home session with French model Melody Lunel.
We could have used a dark blanket or curtain, I am sure you can think of something... Anyways it's going to be so dark in the back, that you will barely see any details.
So there you are you don't have to bring tons of gear, I only had 2 flashes, 2 light stands a tripod, and my camera bag. And guess what, you can achieve this look with only one light.
I mentioned it last week, what is that mysterious "Edge mask"? I've been using it a lot for my sports portraits lately, the Broncolor "EDGE MASK" is a cool tool that can help you make beautiful silhouettes, and moody, dark pictures.
Huge thanks to Melody for her trust check out her IG for more! Feel free to share your lighting setups on location in the comments, tell me how you do it.
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