Lighting Setup and Results

I don’t always have the luxury of shooting in my spacious studio. Sometimes I’m shooting on-location, in less-than-ideal spaces. But I’m certainly the type that likes a challenge!

Recently, one of my favorite clients, the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago, hired me to photograph their team’s new headshots in their offices. I had no idea what to expect, so I brought flexible options so I could achieve the desired results no matter what the situation. 

Hooray for good planning! The best space available in their office for headshots turned out to be a 9x12ish room with low ceilings and a huge meeting table in the middle. A bulky lighting setup would never have worked, but off-camera flash units and modifiers did the trick. While the YWCA employees were getting glammed up courtesy of Landis, I set up and tested lighting.

Headshots always turn out better with professional makeup! MUA: Landis

I used Neewer flash mounting brackets to use my flash with a 47” octobox. I placed a reflector underneath to get a “clamshell” lighting look. My 2nd flash had a flexible diffuser on it so I could point it at the backdrop with minimal spill back on to the subject. 

(cell phone shot of setup)

I had to raise the octobox all the way to the ceiling, and sort of crouch underneath it. For particularly tall subjects, I had them do a bit of a lunge and twist towards the camera so I was still slightly above them. (My height helped me here, if I wasn’t 6ft tall I would have needed a step stool.)

I shot these with a 70-200mm 2.8 at f2.8, ISO 800, 1/160th of a second. I triggered the flashes wirelessly with a controller and two transmitters.

Simple setup, great results!