Pregnant Girl with a guy

[canonkid08]

I plan to photograph my best friends girlfriend who is pregnant with him in the

photo as well. I wrote down the idea of having her with her head down and to

the side, with her arms on her belly, and him behind her with his hands around

her and his head on her neck, both of them looking at the baby. I plan to get

a starter lighting set sometime after Christmas and set it up in her house. I

know very little about lighting. I'm a senior in highschool, but know a great

deal about Cameras. Currently I own a Canon EOS 30D with a sigma 70-300mm

macro dg lens, a wide angle/macro lens, and the standard 18-55mm f/3.5-5 ef

lens as well. I work at a sports photography business here in town, and I help

set up the lights, but haven't really paid much attention to how they're set up

and how I would set them to get my effect. I want some side lighting with them

fairly close to the backdrop (plain) and another shot of light bounced off the

wall behind them. I don't know any brand names for light meters OR beginner

studio sets. My budget is around $300 for the studio, and I have no clue for

the meter. Can someone help me find a beginner studio setup and tell me how to

achieve the lighting technique I want, OR just give me some ideas for a

beginner studio and I'll experiment on my own. Thanks for the feedback!!! E-

mail me your response to Cornerpub90@aol.com. I'm fairly new to this site and

I don't know how to work it yet... but thanks for all you do!!!

[ronald_moravec1]

http://www.vividlight.com/articles/1615.htm

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rembrandt_lighting

 

http://www.rit.edu/~andpph/photoforum/pdf/rembrandt_lighting.pdf

 

http://www.dphotojournal.com/rembrandt-lighting-video-tip/

 

These should get you started. The whole idea is to watch where the shadows fall and not to have to great a range between highlights and shadows. This is controlled by the differece in distance between main and fill lights to the subject or dialing in different power settings on each head.

 

http://www.studiolighting.net/studio-lighting-tutorials/

 

Copy and paste the addresses. Don`t type them.

 

Come back with specific questions when you have them. This takes practice so find some friends to practice on.

[nathan_stiles]

OMG, Lucas, you lost me. I started on your resume and just had to skip down to the question. After all that, is your question advice on which light meter and strobe lights to buy?

 

Just skimmed again, for light set ups: http://www.amherstmedia.com/miva/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=L

[ellis_vener_photography]

She's pregnant with her boyfriend? That means either he's really, really small or her belly must be enormous. It sounds like you'll need an ultra-sound or X-Ray machine to show both of their faces.

 

And they also want a baby in the picture too? Is the boyfriend going to pop his head out of her Vage to look at the baby?

[barry_kenstler1]

Lucas,

 

$300 will not buy a lot of studio equipment, especially if you plan to get a flash meter. You might consider purchasing one lighting unit and a large satin umbrella. You can either shoot through or bounce off the umbrella and mate it with a large piece white foam board on the side opposite the light. If you already have an on-camera flash with manual power settings, you can move that off-camera via a synch cord, put it on a light stand with adaptor, wrap a piece of black paper around the head (snoot) and use that to project a spot of light on the backdrop.

 

Skip the light meter. Run some tests in advance and adjust your camera via the histogram. Chuck Gardner's white towel test is an idea. Check his stuff out at http://super.nova.org/DPR/

 

You may also find some lighting examples and other stuff at my new lighting website helpful. That's www.portraitlighting.net

 

Good luck with the adventure.

[barry_kenstler1]

Ellis,

 

That's sooo VENEReal!

[dave_holland]

With only $300, you should plan to use natural light for your main light source. You might get a reflector, and save the rest for later. One priority would be to get flash off camera, and the cheapest way to do that would be to make a hardwire setup. But that would take effort and time, which you probably don't have before this shoot.

 

I would choose a place in the house with a large adjacent window, hopefully north facing so that sun can't go in directly. Set up the reflector across from that to soften shadows. Don't be afraid to move stuff around to get the lighting right. Try to get your model as close as possible to that major window and hence increase the size of your lightsource and soften the light. Fire away. Remember that crosslighting of the tummy will emphasize minor skin irregularities, and so if she has a lot of striae, crosslighting may be less than flattering. By using a large, soft light source those irregularities will fade away.

 

Dave

[sten_lofgren]

Check out www.strobist.blogspot.com. It is a site for learning about off camera flash using affordable or DYI (Do It Yourself) equipment. A flash meter will be superfluous and too expensive for your budget. Use "chimping" instead - use the monitor on your camera to display a histogram and vary your exposure until the histogram shows that you have lights and darks that don't go beyond the edge of the histogram but get close to it. In effect you already have a flash meter. My suggestion for a bare bones studio: 2 Light stands @ $30 ea., 2 Umbrella holders @ $20 ea. 2 Umbrellas (at least 1 shoot-through)@$30 ea., and 2 Vivitar 285HV flashes @ $90 ea. (make sure they are HV, the older model will fry your camera). Total $340 (although some of the items may be had for less). Add connecting wires, etc and a sheet of white foam core to act as a reflector. That should give you some options to work with lighting that can make a good portrait.

[canonkid08]

Wow guys, thanks for all the responses, I can't wait to setup and I think it will be very exciting to see what I can make of all this advice... when the time comes, I'll repost (after christmas) and let you know how it turned out, also, I'll post the photos online here for critique, thanks all!