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For web designers, there’s pretty much just two types of us: those who work for a studio with others and those who go solo as a freelancer. Each have their perks and downsides – and today we’ll be examining the pros and cons of each to help find which one is the right fit for you!

Studio vs. Freelance: Is the Grass Any Greener?

“there aren’t many fields like web design that allow an individual the ability to take on projects of their own without a full team to support him/her”

It’s worth noting that this is a highly personalized choice for any web designer. Lots of designers and developers specifically picked this as their career because of the freedom it allows them… but they quickly realize that there are huge benefits to working as part of a structured team. This can often complicate a career decision that most of us never really thought we’d have to make. To make matters worse, web design is an industry that’s getting more complicated by the week. Some studios have entire legal, financial, and marketing teams to help keep them afloat… which can make it hard for some individual designers to compete with.

If you’ve been working in the web design field for any length of time, you might have a “the grass is greener on the other side” mentality. Lots of studio designers often dream about having more freedom and the ability to negotiate their own project rates. Likewise, lots of freelancers envy the consistent paychecks and job security that a studio position can bring. Today, I’m here to help clarify these issues for you. In this article, we’ll pit the pros and cons of each method of work for you to make an informed choice.

Let’s face it: most of us got our start in the field of web design working on projects for friends, family, or ourselves. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the vast majority of studio designers out there have also have picked up side projects at some time during their “studio” careers. Whether or not you considered these side projects as a “freelance” career, the fact is that it’s an experience that most of us can relate with.

The reason is simple: becoming a web designer, unlike becoming a doctor or lawyer, is a process that allows you to work on side projects before you ever take a full position in a studio or design agency. Quite a few college students taking classes also opt to start taking on freelance projects during their coursework. This is something that’s more or less unheard of in other industries… consider a medical student trying to perform “pro bono” surgical operations while he was still in med school! The same goes for lots of specialized industries. The simple fact is that there aren’t many fields like web design that allow an individual the ability to take on projects of their own without a full team to support him.

Freelancers Have No Boss (Besides Themselves)

The appeal of taking on freelance projects is obvious; The freedom of working on your own time, with no boss limiting or directing your creative workflow, can be a huge attraction to some web designers who aren’t interested in being saddled with anything that resembles an office job. Being your own boss means you naturally still have to work, but you can do so on your on your own terms and take an hour off if you need it. Want to go out for that long lunch? You can if you’re a freelancer!

You might even perform better as a freelance designer because you’ll be taking on more responsibility and making the big decisions yourself. Working purely in the direction you want can drive your motivation for the product, which can often lead to better final results.

However, the freedom of being your own boss does not come with only advantages. There are some cons to the situation. Freelancing as an individual means you have a slightly less stable income than if you were working on regular salary work with a studio and it could become harder to plan financially if you use project-by-project pricing.

Being self employed in general has obvious disadvantages such as company-provided health benefits and you will be required to pay out from your fees for these types of incidents. Sure, you have the option to take some time off when you feel like it, but there’s no sick or holiday pay should you not work for a day.

Overall, it’s a lot more difficult to be a freelancer full-time and there’s a ton more stuff to think about. However, while having no boss means you have more work to do on the business side of things, you have more overall freedom over your work.

Freelancers Can Choose Their Work

Building on the idea of having no boss, freelancers get more freedom and choice in their work. If you’re a one man show, you can choose specifically what jobs you take on with varying effort, time and general work needed.

This means that you can look for projects that are suited specifically to your talents. It means that if you only feel like doing a few newsletter templates, you can choose to only take that much on. If you’re motivated and ready for a big challenge, you can go ahead take that on if you want. This means you’re workflow correlates to your free time and hopefully reducing (and contradicting) one of my later points. It also allows you to spice up your workflow and do different jobs instead of sticking with a single, monotonous task.

If you feel like going international and have a copy of Skype installed, the freedom to move across the borders is one generally appreciated more by freelancers. You can work for a Hong Kong restaurant or for an Australian store. It really doesn’t matter because the limits of the web don’t exist. Of course, studios can enjoy this same benefit but it’s a lot easier to rack up an international job as an individual.

Studio Workers Have a Consistent Paycheck

Perhaps the biggest argument for working collaboratively at a studio is that one will receive a regular paycheck no matter what happens. This means your financial house is a little more regular and consistent which might be a preference over the potential lack of financial stability of a freelancer.

Working on a consistent paycheck means studio work is pretty much like being employed by any company. You work on an hourly rate on a specific, constant number of days a week. This results in being able to financially plan ahead which can be important in the current economic climate.

Unfortunately, you’re more likely to be limited in your ability to work additional hours than if you were a freelancer. If you’re working hourly as a freelancer, you can just stay in your office for a little longer and still charge for those hours whereas your studio counterpart might be limited in their overtime.

Studios Take Care of the Business For You

If you start out as a freelance, your tax, your client relationships, your expenses and pretty much everything else are managed by you, which can add some additional strain on your life. Luckily, studios are just employers and they act in the same way as if you were working in most other professions. They provide your hardware in most cases and your benefits, hours and pay are maintained by the business. Therefore, you can just concentrate on your work and potentially do a better job.

Aside from the legal and business-oriented advantages, the idea of having someone next to you to collaborate on and talk over ideas can be seen as a big pro. Discussing your ideas and brainstorming as part of a group can result in a better quality output and guide your thinking into a superior end product. Having someone to absorb and build on your creative juices can be a great opportunity for a new learning experience, especially if you’re working as a junior alongside people with more experience in the field.

In the UK at least, working under a company means you pay PAYE (or Pay As You Earn) tax that is deducted right out of your salary. This means you won’t have to fill out an annoying Self Assessment tax return at the end of the tax year or pay for an accountant to keep your finances organized.

Working Collaboratively Offers More Direction

As I touched on before, working as part of a team can offer a new learning experience, especially for those new to the field. Working alongside and cooperatively with others helps both of you bounce ideas off each other and gain critical feedback that can contribute to a project’s visual and functional success. If you’re at home and an error strikes you, Google might be your only option. If you’re working in a studio, there’s probably someone else there that can troubleshoot it for you, if your efforts are fruitless.

Plus, studios can contain a diverse bunch of people with a selection of skills that work together, normally specialized by one individual. Collaborative working means the wider skill set of your studio’s community can be applied and their co-operation creates a better design in the long term.

Naturally, freelancers can still bounce their problems and ideas off others thanks to the various communication platforms of the internet. It just seems a lot easier to shout over to Paul on the other desk than ring him up on Skype.

Freelancers Run the Risk of Work Overload and Stress

This is something I can relate too. As a freelancer, one might feel obliged to take on more work they can handle when demand for your services is high. Sure, the payout at the end of it’s nice, but constantly working can leave little time for anything else. It can also result in poor end products as you battle through endless tasks to get them over and done with. In a studio, though, you probably have someone to deal with all that for you as you are only handling one job delegated to you.

Taking on too much can lead to some stress and the action will most likely affect other areas of your life. The strain of impending deadlines and the amount of work involved can be extremely daunting for some who have other important things going on. It’s not the same 9 to 5 job and if you decide to take an afternoon off, you might have to recap one night or at a weekend.

Freelancers Can Network More Often

If you’re a freelancer, your more likely to be out networking and making contacts in the real world and online. You’re not limited to the confides of four walls with the same people every day. By freelancing, you can go out and meet people, both clients and peers. You can build up some awesome working relationships with subcontractors and your fellow freelancers which is always great when you’re in a community such as this.

You never know where networking might end you up. You could be offered a job, bigger and better projects or just find someone to talk to and bounce ideas of each other. If it weren’t for getting out there and communicating with different people, I, quite frankly, wouldn’t be talking to you now!

Networking with people doesn’t necessarily mean that you are visiting conferences and physically meeting new people. Just by following someone on Twitter or getting engaged in the comments of a blog or forum post can help find you future friends, clients or coworkers. The internet has changed things and, with your whole life online, you are no longer bound by country, time zone or even language!

That’s not to say that those who work on a studio are monotonous drones (1984-style). In fact, you’ll probably do a fair share of networking there but you may find you’re working with (and, in some cases, for) the same people over and over again.

There’s No Such Thing As Job Security

We are still living in tough economic times and there’s not really anything to say that your job is secure. That is, unless you’re the boss. As a freelancer, as long as you can tap into the supply of potential clients, you will have a nice enough income and, as mentioned before, have the power to control that. Being a freelancer allows you to have some job security, as long as the flow of work is still there. If you can’t find clients, there’s numerous ways to continue work, like creating and selling mass-market themes on a marketplace like ThemeForest instead.

However, if a web design agency is running out of work, your neck might be on the block. As with all companies who have financial problems, your studio might decide to lay off people, resulting in the potential for you to be kicked out. It’s the same for pretty much any profession, web design or otherwise.

A Third Option: Remote Teams

There’s a third choice that many designers have made over the past couple years. More and more, teams of designers and developers are grouping up in “remote teams” that group up to tackle big projects without ever leaving their locations. For instance, Brandon (the editor here at Webdesigntuts) worked with a remote team for several years that included people from the US to Canada to Australia. The benefit of these remote teams is simple: you get the perks of working with a big, talented team without ever giving up your freedom. The team itself benefits from not having to pay for a brick and mortar set of offices.

There are downsides for these kinds of remote teams though. First, it’s much harder to sell the services of your team if you don’t have an established office because you’ll lack credibility until you have a big portfolio. Naturally, it’s much harder to organize projects and run effective time management when everyone is in different timezones. Using tools like Basecamp, Copper, or Redmine can help mitigate these problems and make remote teams just as effective (if not moreso!) than other single location-based teams.

You also lack the “culture” of working in an office with other designers… is a problem that many freelancers deal with. Using local cooperative working spaces (or even just working at coffee shops) can help eliminate this feeling of working in isolation, but there isn’t much that can really replace the water cooler. Still, if you can create your own work culture on an online environment, this is an option that lots of web designers may want to consider. We do work on the web, don’t we? Why not make that your office?!

So, Which is Better?

This is much more of a personal question than it may seem. The answer depends on your current personal and financial state. For example, if you’re willing to take on some added pressure and stress, freelancing might not be so bad. But if you’re a student freelancer in the middle of studying, that might not be the best thing to add to your schedule.

Similarly, getting experience through studio work might be advantageous for those who are new to the field and who may find it hard to grab client’s attention. A constant salary means they can safely step into the industry without the fear that they’ll find little or no work. There are obviously hybrid approaches as well – ie: designers who have part-time agreements with larger studios who also pick up freelance projects on the side.

Are you a freelancer? Do you work for a studio? Let us know your thoughts on the pros and cons in the comments!

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Whether you want to get more serious about professional studio photography or you want to expand your current lighting setup, this tutorial is meant to give you an introduction to the different types of basic lighting equipment. Hopefully you’ll come away with enough knowledge to aid you when shopping for new gear.

Lighting equipment can fall into one of three major categories: the light sources themselves, modifiers that control the spread of light, and grips or stands that support the lights.

Light sources

Professional studio light sources generally fall into one of two categories: you can get a kit with a flash head and a power pack, or you can get a monolight kit.

A head and power pack kit consists of the flash head and a small power pack that acts as the generator that supplies energy to the flash head. The flash head contains flash tubes that emit light once supplied with high voltages.

There are two kinds of power packs: symmetric power packs and assymetric power packs. Symmetric power packs split power equally between multiple flash heads. Assymetric power packs allow the user to vary the power supply to different flash heads.

Monolights, on the other hand, are compact substitutes for a power pack/flash head combinations. Their size limits their power, but they are often desired for their portability.

Having all the controls on the power pack makes it easier to change the settings of multiple flash heads in one place quickly. Monolights come with the controls built directly into the light itself. So if you have multiple monolights, you’ll need to control and adjust the settings of each one separately. Head/power pack kits also offer faster flash durations than monolights, which can really come in handy when you want to freeze action during fast motion. They also have faster recycle times.

If you’re shooting outdoors or with complicated modifier setups, you are going to need a lot of power to overcome the sun or the light loss caused by the modifiers. Head/pack systems have a big advantage in the power department. Whereas, if you’re shooting indoors or inside your studio, monolights will probably be more than enough for regular work.

With each option, you can find equipment prices that vary widely. Be sure to also check out used gear,  as you can often find good deals on lighting kits that can serve you well. Whichever your choose, keep in mind that the most durable equipment is made mainly of metal rather than plastic.

Most lights, regardless of the brand or model, provide heads that come in the form of a strobe surrounded by a reflector. Some, like the Profoto Acute/D4 flash heads, come with a zoom reflector which slides and locks at your chosen position allowing you to further control the spread of light. Their zoom reflector, like many others, provides the ability to attach a honeycomb grid for an even more focused spread, or other kinds of light modifiers used for different effects.

If your flash head does not come with a zoom reflector, you can find many types of wide or narrow reflectors sold as accessories. Wide reflectors produce a larger pool of light and a softer light quality, narrow reflectors produce smaller pools of light and a harsher light quality.

Most strobe lights allow you to completely remove the reflector and attach different kinds of light modifiers.

Link to best-selling monolights on Amazon

Light modifiers

The most common types of light modifers are umbrellas and softboxes.

Reflecting umbrellas produce a diffused and soft light due to the larger size of the reflecting surface. They are mounted in such a way that the strobe light is actually facing away from the subject or model. Light flies from the strobe head hitting the inside of the umbrella and then bounces back towards the subject.

There are silver-lined, white, and gold tinted umbrellas. Silver-lined umbrellas are the most efficient and can focus light more  narrowly than the other types. White umbrellas offer a wider spread of reflected light, and gold umbrellas produce a warm tone.

Softboxes on the other hand are usually square or rectangular. They are lightweight boxes that come with a reflective inside and a translucent front. Softboxes come in different shapes and sizes and are attached to the front the strobe over the light source. Light emitted from the strobe head gets reflected inside the walls of the softbox and diffused through the box’s translucent front creating a soft, but more focused light source illuminating the model or scene.

The difference between reflecting umbrellas and softboxes is that the spread of light with a softbox is more contained. With an umbrella on the other hand, light can spill beyond the boundaries of the reflective surface affecting the amount of light getting back to the subject. Spilled light can also hit walls and ceilings indoors causing it to reflect and bounce all over the place. An umbrella simply isn’t as controllable as a softbox.

Some other tools that control and modify the quality of light are barn doors, snoots, and honeycomb grids. These are attached directly to your strobe head by mounting to the reflector that comes with (or is bought for) your strobe, as discussed above.

Snoots are conical shaped tools that narrow the distribution of light. These can be used to produce a very focused, harsh light. They are often used like a spot light or to light the background. They are also very handy as a rim or hair light to illuminate the model from the back.

Barn doors are flaps surrounding a strobe that can be opened or closed to control the light and prevent it from spilling. They don’t produce a concentrated and direct light like snoots, but they can come in handy depending on your needs.

Honeycomb grids, as the name suggests, are basically honeycomb shaped metallic grids that direct the light for a more focused spread. These come in different degrees. The smaller the grid cells the tighter the holes through which the light travels, and in turn the more focused the light becomes.

Flags are another type of light modifiers. A flag is any kind of opaque object placed in the way of light to better direct it, to prevent lens flare or to prevent it from spilling. A semi-translucent flag is called a scrim and is used to cut down on light spill.

Link to best-selling reflectors on Amazon

Link to best-selling photography umbrellas on Amazon

Link to best-selling flags on Amazon

Link to best-selling softboxes on Amazon

Link to best-selling barn doors on Amazon

Grips and stands

Stands and grips are used to support your light sources, strobes, and even light modifiers or backdrops.

There are two main types of light stands: lightweight stands and C-stands which are more heavy duty. Both types come in varying sizes, lengths, and prices. Heights can usually be adjusted. Sandbags can also be attached to weight the stand and better stabilize your lights.

When you shop for a lightweight stand, the ones with an air-shock are superior. The extra few bucks you pay will go a long way in protecting your expensive lights when you accidentally loosen a knob. The air-shock will soften the fall of your light, minimizing or even eliminating any damage. Also, make sure you get one with a wide footprint (meaning the legs of the stand spread far apart) so that your setup is stable and doesn’t fall over.

You can get a good lightweight stand for around 70 bucks.

C-stands are very good, but they comes at a price. They are heavy duty and very stable. C-stands typically don’t have air-shocks, so you need to pay attention while loosening your knobs so you don’t harm your gear.

C-stands are frequently used in the video industry due to their durability and stability. They can come with a number of attachments like boom arms that can be mounted onto the stand. These arms allow you to add reflectors, scrims, flags and other modifier and rotate them to any angle you wish.

The c-stand is strong enough to hold backgrounds and seemless white paper in addition to lights. They are also very useful when you’re shooting outdoors in windy conditions because their weight adds to their stability. You can get a c-stand with an attachments kit for less than 200 bucks, sometimes far less.

Link to best-selling light stands on Amazon

Conclusion

Whichever path you take and whichever brands you choose when building or expanding your lighting setup, be sure you get the best quality for your budget. Also, choosing items with widely available accessories and parts will help you out later.

Lighting equipment can be very expensive, so make sure you get the tools that are right for you. Start with the most basic and important items, then build up little by little, adding more as the need arises.

It’s also a good idea to try renting equipment prior to actually making a purchase. You can try it out and make sure that it fills your need. You don’t want to go out and spend all you got on something that turns out to be wrong for you.

Feel free to name your favorite lighting equipment and tips for shopping for that equipment in the comments!

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Today we’re going to delve into one of the most important aspects of photography – lighting. We’ll begin with a background as to why lighting is so important, discuss the traditional three-light setup, and then move on to illustrate a number of different lighting techniques (and the associated results)!

Introduction

In photography there are two types of light; hard or harsh light, and soft or diffused light. Hard light casts deep sharp shadows with well-defined edges, such as the case in high mid-day sun. Soft light casts softer shadows with edges less defined, such as the case on an overcast day. That’s because the light is bounced and diffused in different directions and is spilling into the shadows, so the size of the light becomes much larger.

The effective size of the light depends on two factors:

• The actual physical size of the light.
• The light’s position in relation to the subject.

The closer the light is to the subject, the larger the effective size and the softer it is. The further the light is from the subject, the smaller the effective size and the harder it is. So you can easily change the quality of light by changing the effective size.

This brings up another issue – contrast. Contrast is the difference between the light and shadow areas of your scene. The greater the difference, the more contrast the scene is said to have. The smaller the difference, the less contrast the scene is said to have.

Lighting Equipment

Most lighting equipment falls into one of three different classes: Grips, Modifiers, and Light Sources.

Grips expand to encompass all the stuff we use to support and hold our gear. Be it your camera, or lighting equipment such as stands and clamps.

Light modifiers in studio photography are anything we attach to (or hold in front of) our flash or light source, to control the light pattern it normally emits. These would include umbrellas, softboxes, and reflectors.

Light sources are any number of things that emit light onto our scene. It could be available light such as the sun or tungsten light, or it could be artificial such as flash units and strobes.

The Standard 3-Light Setup

A 3-light setup consists of: a key light, a fill light, and a separation light.

Key light is the main light that has the most significance in your scene. It creates the defining highlight and shadow areas of your shot, and is the light that all your others are based upon.

If the key light was the only source of illumination, the subject would have a well-defined side, with the back and other side appearing fairly dark. This could result in dramatic high-contrast effect if done creatively, as shown in the images below.

Photo by Wayne – Amethyst Photography

Photo by Dustin Diaz

Photo by Dustin Diaz

The fill light is a secondary source of light that is used in conjunction with your key light to open up the shadows at the other side of your subject, and cut down on scene contrast.

Separation light – or hair light – is the third source of light, and is used if you have a dark subject against a dark background. So the separation light would come in handy for separating your subject from the background, providing a good outline from behind and pulling it out from the background.

So ideally you would have a main light source to one side of your model set up on a stand, with a soft box or an umbrella on your strobe for softer, defused light. To the other side of your model you would have either a fill light or a bounce card, to fill in the shadows on that side of the model (also set up on a stand). The fill light or reflector would be set a little bit lower than your key light, and it could also be placed further away from your model than the key light.

And finally you would have a separation light placed behind your model from above to separate them from the background. You could also place a backdrop of your choice behind your model if the natural background is not very flattering (or too cluttered).

Photo by Wayne – Amethyst Photography

Note that if you remove the separation light from the diagram above, you end up with a basic two-light setup. This is useful when your subject doesn’t need separation from the background (due to a different backdrop or background tone), or to purposefully blend the subject into the background for creative effect.

Photo by Wayne – Amethyst Photography

Photo by Dustin Diaz

Photo by Dustin Diaz

Photo by John D.

Lighting Ratios

The lighting ratio is the comparison of the key light and the fill light. For a soft even lighting, you would use a lighting ratio of 1:1. A 1:1 lighting ration means that the brightness from the key light would be the same as the brightness from the fill light. So if the key light metered at f/8, then the fill light would need to similarly meter at f/8.

A 2:1 lighting ratio means that the key light is twice as bright as the fill light. This is a difference of 1 full stop. So if the key light metered at f/8, then the fill light would need to meter at f/5.6

A 4:1 lighting ratios means that the key light is four times brighter than the fill light. This is a difference of 2 stops. So if the key light metered at f/8, the fill light would need to meter at f/4. And so on…

So if you want to have flat light, you would use a 1:1 ratio. If you want to have a cool effect, you would use a 2:1 ratio. If you want to have a strong dramatic effect, you would use an 8:1 ratio for great contrast in the scene. The higher the ratio, the higher the contrast.

It’s also important to keep in mind that the positioning of your lights highly impacts the contrast of your scene as well. To get the highest effect from lighting ratios, make sure you keep your lights at an angle of 45 degrees or more from your camera. The greater the angle, the greater the contrast.

Very Basic Lighting Setups

• Basic Portrait Light: This setup uses two softboxes. A small one below and a large one above it, at the same angle. The lighting ratio is 2:1

  The large softbox acts as the key light, and it also could illuminate the background if it was dark. The small softbox acts as the fill light. The photographer would shoot right through the gap in the vertical axis between the softboxes, while standing behind them.

• Basic Fashion light: This setup uses a 4×6 softbox with a grid, and a large foam cord bookend as a reflector. You can move the foam cord reflector closer to the model for more fill, or further away from the model for less fill. This setup uses a 4:1, or an 8:1 lighting ratio.
• Basic Beauty light: This setup is exactly the same as the fashion light setup above, only substituting the large softbox with a beauty dish. This gives a little bit harder light, with greater contrast. The lighting ratio of this setup is 4:1.
• Lens Flare Effect: This setup uses a ring flash above, and to the right of the model, and a bare head behind the model also to the right for some intentional lens flare. The lighting ratio is 4:1, with the bare light head metering twice as bright as the key light.

Side Bounce

If you’re low on budget, don’t have much time for a big setup, or don’t have your gear readily available, you can pose your model a couple feet away from a wall, place your light source facing the wall (as shown below), and have the light bounce off the wall from the side to complement and more naturally illuminate your model.

Using this technique, you can experiment with how far your light would be by moving it closer (for a smaller softbox effect) or further away (for a larger softbox effect) from the wall.

You can also attach a flag to your light source to keep light from spilling onto your model, or you can go without a flag for a nice catchlight effect.

If you find yourself in a place with no bright walls, you could use anything that can act as a bounce surface: a reflector, white cardboard, a light table cloth, or even someone wearing a white shirt. All those can be used as a bounce surface. You just face your light toward whatever it is you find available to act as your bounce surface, and place your model to the side of that surface!

What’s a Flag?

A flag is anything that is used to block light in a controlled way, preventing it from spilling onto your model. It could also be used to prevent light from flaring into the camera lens.

Surround Bounce

You can use this technique by setting up your flash unit in a way that would illuminate a large bounce area of a medium-sized room, by taking advantage of walls and ceiling to scatter and diffuse light as you find appropriate.

Using surround bounce gives your photos a natural-like light that is typically available with no artificial lighting involvement.

Floor Shots

Floor shots are just like any other wall bounce shots, only flipping everything 90 degrees towards the ceiling as it acts as your softbox. Your model would be lying on the floor, with your light source pointing towards the ceiling and bouncing back to illuminate your subject and the surrounding environment in general.

You could also substitute the ceiling with an umbrella, with the flash facing away from your subject. The light would bounce off the umbrella and onto your subject, easily illuminating them while you create your masterpiece.

Here are a couple of examples:

Photo by Michał Grajkowski

Photo by Michał Grajkowski

Making Use of Ambient Light

Ambient light can also be used for lighting in an indoor photo shoot, either with or without a flash. It could be used as a rim light from behind, pulling your subject away from the background while you light up their face with an on camera flash.

Ambient light could also be used alone to take care of lighting. You could make use of any light bulbs, table lamps and so on. For ambient-only lighting in a fairly dark environment you could place two table lamps (taking the shades off) opposite to each other with your model in between.

You would place one of them closer to the subject than the other, to act as a main light while the opposite light source acts as a fill light. A plus of this technique is that you can take your readings in real-time as the light falls on your subject.

Photo by Bob

Photo by Daniel Greene

Making Use of Window Light

Windows are a great light source for indoor photography, especially if they’re large or emitting great amounts of light.

You could place your subject against a window and shoot them from the front (with or without an on camera flash). Of course if you do use a flash, it would be your key light and the window light would be your softbox. You could also expose for your subject without regard for the window light, to get a high key result.

Alternatively, you could use window light as key light by turning your model to the side, having half their face lit by the window while the other side fairly lit by available room light for dramatic creative results. Or you could use it as fill light by placing your subject in the same manner, and having a main light source positioned to the other side to act as your key light.

Photo by Gabor Szantai

Photo by Jay Ryness

Conclusion

Indoor and studio flash photography is a huge subject, but today I tried to provide you with a sufficient introduction to light, it’s various qualities, as well as how we can bend and adjust those qualities to suit our own taste and needs for great professional results.

We have also been over a few basic lighting setups, as well as how to make use of the surrounding environment to our advantage, so that you guys can embark upon this creative journey and take the best photos you can!

If you have anything to add to the principles and ideas above, I’d love to read your comment!

Phototuts+

http://www.freewebtemplatestudio.com/

http://www.grasgroen.com

Grasgroen Media is one of the leading advertising agencies from the north of the Netherlands.
Notes

http://www.shiridesignstudio.com

http://fluxar.com

http://www.miyo.nl

http://theblackharbor.com

http://animationsaints.in

http://www.plinestudios.com

http://www.radubotez.com

http://www.studiowolf.nl

www.fsdsign.com/#fs.com