02/02/2026
The forth dimension of light.
Mariana's family are really into taekwondo so our lighting workshop started with head shots but then turned to how to make dramatic images of her husband and son. Now you see the results!
We started with one strobe in the key light position which indeed lit the scene, but it had little drama. We played with the position of the backlight which included a blue gel. We finally settled on placing the back light above and behind the backdrop. Then we added in fog from our fog machine. There you have it!
Now, for those who are interested, there's a lot of discussion about the exposure triangle to help conceptualize how you manage light in your images. There's nothing wrong with that concept but we prefer to think of it as the exposure square because when you use a strobe you have an added dimension and can control the amount of light with the strobe. The power level of your strobe will affect your ISO, and aperture. What about shutter speed? The strobe will not affect that because the strobe fires for a very short duration. That duration can be variable but it can be as fast as 1/10,000 of a second. So what's left to control? It is the ambient light.
The process we used was to first test our exposure with no strobe firing. We had ambient light in the room (we need to see what we're doing and it helps the camera focus), but we select a combination of ISO, aperture, and shutter speed that makes the image black. We have removed the ambient light in our shot and then we lock in our camera settings. Next we like to start with the back light to dial in the power setting to where we like it. Then turn on the key light and dial that in all without changing the camera settings. This is how to make the entire background black and properly expose the image!
Shot at ISO 100, 1/1000s, and f2.8. Don't recall the key light settings but my recollection is somewhere around 1/32-1/64 power.
Flashpoint Strobe and Triggers, Westcott Modifiers, Nikon Z8, Z24-70 f/2.8 shot at 38mm. COLBOR CineFlare
