Trap-Girl IV

Model is Trap-Girl

This image is lit using a technique many photographers call "Y-lighting" - there are 2 softboxes on the opposite side of the model from the camera, highlighting the edges of her body. If you imagine a letter 'Y' the lights are at each of the 'arms' and the camera is at the tail. The model is the nexus in the middle. You can get very subtle effects with this lighting technique by moving one or the other of the light-sources nearer or farther to slightly vary its intensity. In this example, the light to camera right was moved about 10 feet farther away than the light on the left. To keep the center of the image from muddying up with too many shadows, I set up a sheet of white foam-core against the tripod of my camera to act as a bounce. One other trick: to increase the contrast in an image, prevent light from going directly into the camera's lens (it bounces around inside the optics and softens the overall image slightly) by placing "flags" - I use sheets of black foam-core held to light-stands with woodworkers's clamps so that the camera doesn't get directly lit by the softboxes. You can get by without the flags but since I have them in my studio, why not use them?

This image has almost no photoshop other than monochrome conversion in channel mixer (90% red, 10% blue) and removal of a few scrapes and paint chips from the backdrop.

My policy on using my finished artworks as references is here: [link]