Let There Be Light

 

Recently, Patrick Luke (Luke Photography) a Fairport, NY portrait photographer finished a two-phase Portrait session with Lesley, who is a pitcher on the Victor girls’ varsity softball team.  Being such a big part of her life, we wanted to make sure we included it as part of her session.  Not wanting run-of-the-mill photographs, we headed out on location her high school to shoot on the turf field that was equipped with stadium lights.  Yeah, I know this was not a softball field, but just go with me on this one.  I wanted to color of the mid-field graphics, her uniform, and the cloudy sky in the background in the frame.  And with the lighting that I was planning on using, all these colors were supposed to create impact and place nicely together.  And play they did.

Lighting Setup (taken from camera viewpoint)

I brought studio flashes in order to replicate the effect of stadium lights on Leslie while she hit various athletic poses. Even though the stadium lights were not on, I knew I could turn them on in post-production.  But I did everything else I could in camera.

One studio flash was outfitted with a 24 inch beauty dish and a battery pack and placed high and in front of her at a 45 degree angle from the camera viewpoint.  Two other battery powered strobes were placed high and at 45 degree angles to the left and right behind her, to give separation (rim) lighting.  I photographed her in various positions (both pitching and batting), trying to get at least one of the stadium lights in the background.

After processing the raw images and exporting them as TIFFs using Adobe Lightroom, I brought the image into Adobe Photoshop.  After duplicating the background layer and selecting it, I painted white into each of the individual lights using a small, soft-edged brush.  Using layer styles, I added an outer glow to the layer of the lights.  Finally, I added a lens flare to the center of the light standard on that same layer, which created in the familiar glare that results when a lens is pointed towards a light source.  Using a mask layer, I painted out some of the effect that showed on her face and body, so that they could be seen unaffected by the glare.

The effect only works well when the image is created with the end in mind.  If the studio lights were not used, or were not placed in the correct position, then no matter how good you are in Photoshop, the effect will not look realistic.  Bringing studio lights and all the necessary battery packs is not always the easiest way to roll, but the best way is not always the easiest way.  And if you are going to take the time to do it, always do it to the best of your abilities.  You owe it to yourself and your subjects.