The challenge of this shoot was the amount of space I was shooting or should I say… the lack of space. This is a common problem for a lot of us, you show up to a clients house and the area you have to shoot in might not be ideal. But, you being the professional, you have to make the best of the situation….right? The entire area was about 10’x10′ with 8′ ceilings and a ceiling fan in the middle.

You might thing 10×10 is a lot of space… well… it’s workable for this kind of shot since we are focused on shooting from the shoulders up. Going full length… no fun. I placed the dark gray background about 3 feet behind her. She was sitting on a kitchen chair in the center of the room. The Elinchrom 600rx was placed on a boom and then raised the center of the dish to about 1 foot over her eyes and angled down at about 35-45 degrees.

I will stand behind the subject and try to place them (subject) about 2 -1/2 ft to 3 ft back from the light source. I had to use a grid on the beauty dish to control the light from spilling on to my background. I also placed the diffusion sock on the dish to….well…. diffuse the light. LOL I wasn’t looking for hard shadows in this particular shot. Next I then placed the Lastolite Tri reflector in front of her at about chest level, paying attention to how much light was being pushed back on her from the strobe.

A couple of adjustments later, I ended up using two of the three reflector panels for the fill. You can see the panels in the reflection of the eye. Looking back… I might have placed another reflector to camera left to pick up a little more light on to the right side of her hair. But… a minor tweak in Photoshop got me where I wanted to be.

Equipment used:

Canon 135mm L 

Lastolite Tri Reflector 

Speedotron Beauty Dish