Combining Lights for an Exterior
Some things happen through trial and error, others are super well thought out, planned and executed, and somethings are a combination of the two that people tend to call experience. When I first started photographing exteriors, I believe there was a bit of luck involved for the way some of them came out. Later down the path when I started photographing commercial and higher budget exteriors, I noticed that a lot of them had pre installed lighting so I figured it was time to invest in my own lights. Due to budget limitations at the time, I went out and bought a set of work lights to help light up my elevation shots. I did this for a while and for some bad decision, I went through the HDR phase, realized it’s limits and started trying to come up with different solutions. For my last photo shoot, I decided to try and combine my work lights from the past, with my strobes that I am presently using. I knew that the color temperature of the two were going to be different (halogen bulbs rated around 3000k vs sunlight balanced flashes rated at 5600k) but I was okay with, and in fact impartial to the house going a bit warmer. So I set up the work lights on the side of the house to light it up, and added in the strobes to fill in the foreground. I really like the combination of the two lights working together to create this image, and more importantly the clients emailed response was:
“ohhhhhhhh ahhhhhh…..I love it!! Very nice!”
Here is the front elevation shot with 1000w work lights and two strobes:
.8 seconds - f/8 - 24mm - iso200
and here is the set up shot of everything. Note the two red stands are the work lights, one camera right, and the other is in front of the sign right next to the American flag flagpole. One strobe is soft boxed camera right, and the other is just camera left below the camera. I also included the bed of the truck since this is where I was shooting from. It is a great shooting platform that raises you off the ground a good 7 ft. which gives you a nice perspective.
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Ben Smithson on 07.13.2010
This shot looks great. The cool and warm colors work together. What shutter speed did you use for the shot? (I’m guessing it was a bunch of different tests, and then you kept the best?)