Controlling Light; How I Shot "STUPID"

[Mike Burnett]

I used 3 lights to sidelight the right side of the image; 2 clamp lights, and one lizard lamp (all with incandescent 60 watt "daylight" bulbs). They were stacked to provide lighting from the bottoms of the bottles to the tops and from slightly above. I used a Diffuser (white card-stock) to soften the light coming from the bottom lamp; this softened some distracting and harsh shadows on the text, and enhanced the glint on the top rims of the bottles.

I used a 4th flood light, with a reflector (again, white card-stock) to isolate and highlight the focal point (the message). This light was hand held at about 11 o'clock (image top), while the reflector was hand-held at about 8 o'clock (image left). Both were held very close; no more than one foot away from the setup.

I flipped the center post of my tri-pod upside down, directly above the subject and triggered the shutter via remote with a 2-sec delay so i could position the flood light and reflector. I deliberately underexposed the image by about 2-3 stops to keep the mood slightly grim, and prevent the highlights from getting blown out. I Then converted the image to grayscale using CS3, and voila!

Here's what it looked like:



Any questions, feel free to ask. I had a lot of fun with this, and hope to inspire some others with exploring "ghetto setups".

[Atropos]

Tx for the How To, so simple, but so effective.
Appreciate it

[Mike Burnett]

Originally Posted by Atropos

Tx for the How To, so simple, but so effective.
Appreciate it

No problem; I'm glad you found it helpful.

Cheers.

[gnownad]

Pretty cool! Is the message you're trying to get across "drink loads of beer, then get a car"? :P