I use to conduct workshops called “The Magic of Umbrellas” for small groups of photographers. During the workshop, I would use different kinds of umbrellas in all sizes and fabrics—using them in bounce and shoot-through mode and let everyone in the group make several images of a model with each of the umbrella set-ups. Right now, I am planning a series of blog posts—if my chosen model is willing—showing how to use a single umbrella to make studio portraits. Look for this series real soon now.,..
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
The mind is like an umbrella. It’s most useful when open.—Walter Gropius
Gene Kelly had an umbrella while he was dancing in Singing in the Rain but he didn’t use it much, preferring instead to get wet. Photographic umbrellas won’t necessarily keep you dry in a storm but they are the simplest and most inexpensive form of lighting modifier available and that makes them the most popular too.
As photographers our lighting is controlled by a few important rules. One of the most important being that the closer or larger a light source is to a subject, the softer the lighting will be. Conversely, the smaller or further away that a light source is from the subject, the harder the lighting becomes. Then there’s the inverse square law that states that the intensity of illumination is proportional to the inverse square of the distance from the light source. This means that an object or person that’s twice the distance from a light receives just one quarter of the illumination.
A Big Umbrella is Even Better
So bigger is better, right? That old lighting rule that “size matters” is important since a bigger umbrella is going to produce a broad, soft light for your portraits.
Because umbrellas produce broad lighting, they are often used for fill light but that doesn’t mean you can’t let umbrellas totally light a portrait subject, especially when using a large parabolic umbrella. This type of umbrella is often overlooked by the average shooter because some European-made parabolic umbrellas can cost $6,000 or more while one of Paul C Buff’s PLM series of umbrellas offer 51-inch models at $29.95 with larger models also affordably priced.
The advantage of using a large parabolic umbrellas is threefold: First, a big light source, especially when placed near the subject is going to create soft lighting. Second, because of the umbrella’s parabolic shape, light falloff towards the edges is minimized. Third, a parabolic design results in high light efficiency allowing you the choice of producing either high contrast directed light or extremely soft light.
How I made this portrait: I was once criticized by a colleague at Shutterbug magazine of “channeling the ghost of Peter Gowland.” My replied to him was that “I knew Peter Gowland and he was a friend of mine. But I am no Peter Gowland,” Yet, I have to admit that there’s more than little bit of the Gowland influence in both the lighting, posing and even the choice of model in this portrait.
I made this portrait of Colleen Breanne in my friend Jack Dean’s large studio. The main light uses a 64-inch umbrella, while the fill light uses a 86-inch white parabolic Booth Photo umbrella. Both are used in bounce mode. A small softbox was used as a hair light with a raw light head (from Jack’s power pack and head system) is aimed at a Aqua Colorsmack backdrop from Silverlake Photo Accessories. The portrait was made with a Canon EOS 1D Mark II N and EF 135mm f/2.8 SF lens with the soft focus set at zero (no soft focus) with an exposure of 1/125 sec at f/11 and ISO 100. A small fan was used to give Colleen’s hair that wind blown look. (See setup photo above right.)
My book Joe Farace’s Glamour Photography features information about how I shoot glamour portraits using all kind of lighting equipment including inexpensive monolights such as those offered by Paul C. Buff. (Not a sponsor.) New copies are available from Amazon for $30.54 with used copies available from Amazon.com for around ten bucks, as I write this. Kindle copies are $19.99 for those preferring a digital format.