The second assignment is more spYou'll be doing a photo of a person, using one soft light source (shoot-through or reflective umbrella, soft box, scrim, whatever) and angling it so it becomes a specular highlight in a darkish, semi-reflective background."
ecific than the last: " From first looking at the shots from others, it looks like this is somewhat straightforward and achieves a cool look.
I spent 30 min trying on my own. My first attempts had the subject nicely lit, but I couldn't get the specular highlights to show up behind the subject. I had the umbrella set up on camera right at about 45 degrees. I kept trying different angles, powers, and distances between subject and wall, but the specular highlights still either showed up in the wrong spot or not at all.
I spent 30 min trying on my own. My first attempts had the subject nicely lit, but I couldn't get the specular highlights to show up behind the subject. I had the umbrella set up on camera right at about 45 degrees. I kept trying different angles, powers, and distances between subject and wall, but the specular highlights still either showed up in the wrong spot or not at all.
After failing to get what I want, I revisited the Strobist blog and looked at others' shots. From quick examination, it appears as though the light source has to be more head on, or at an angle so the camera's position places the reflection behind the subject.
I tried again, remembering the law of reflection to get the specular highlight behind the subject. After experimenting with settings and moving both light and subject further a step away from the wall to get the background darker, I finally got everything where I wanted it.
Total Time: 1.75 Hours. My takeaway from today was to keep in mind the basics (in this case, the law of reflections).