#studioblocks

[robculpepper]

I like the idea of complexity through shadow. Do you ever feel like if you did something 100 times, you’d get somewhere good? #signalstudio #52lightstudies #hardlight #studioblocks (at Birmingham, Alabama) https://www.instagram.com/p/ByYcjc3BMpB/?igshid=msqaufcv794x

[robculpepper]

The good thing about these styrofoam packing blocks is that, unlike a person, they don’t get tired or bored the more I time I spend on the light. #cyan #yellow #signalstudio #52lightstudies #studioblocks (at Birmingham, Alabama) https://www.instagram.com/p/ByXzpxmBgrq/?igshid=1byxnqftu9hvk

[robculpepper]

I recently set up a new studio and wanted to see how the ambient light looked. For me, shooting still life is like going on vacation. #signalstudio #stilllife #52lightstudies #studioblocks (at Birmingham, Alabama) https://www.instagram.com/p/ByV-rCcBMqi/?igshid=2qorgssm4xex

[52lightstudies]

Studio Blocks #3

Went off the rails, turned the camera on its side, and pulled out some gels. That’s a straight cyan on the front and a straight yellow on the back. Both are underexposed, which—I guess I’d never internalized—takes the tones way down to an interesting place. Is that because of reduced luminance? To be fair to the final image, I also toned the shadows and highlights just a hair, added some vignette, and desaturated the whole thing maybe 35%. But I would have done that anyway.

So to the lighting...I kept exploring the blocks with the diagonal cut. I painted a white background yellow with a single Acute head w/ 7″ reflector set to 7 or so, enough out from the lamp to let me tape on the gel. I flagged the yellow off the blocks with a piece of black foam core sitting on top of the blocks, plus some cinefoil wrapped around the bottom of the reflector to control spill.

The cyan source (w/ 7″ reflector set up the same as the other) was a few feet away with flags basically knife edged to the light, one knocking down the light on the left block, the other knocking down the right. I built a little box around the background to keep any cyan light from getting back there and making the yellow muddy. In working with the Profoto Acute, I’m learning how to use the ratios (my Broncolors have digital dials and each channel is independent). It’s an interesting constraint and in this case I used both B channels, so I’d get equal power to each head. I then controled balance, intensity, fall off, spread, etc. by moving the light. Such a great practice. Had I used two monolights or a pack with individual controls, I would have been tempted to play with ratios of power rather than distance, and distance changes the shape of the light whereas power does not.

The last important bit is a piece of black foamcore I slipped into the gap to prevent reflection in between the blocks. I mistakenly blocked most of the yellow light, and low and behold, that was the picture.

[52lightstudies]

Studio Blocks #2

This picture was also made with two light sources, but in this case I used 2 Profoto Acute heads (bare frosted bulb) pointed right at the still life from about 6′ away. The idea was to use minimal lighting to create a complex picture with shadows. The heads were set to equal power and exposed at f/11.5. The sources were adjusted to make the best shadows and I didn’t fuss over the exact exposure differences between the two. The only flag I used was a piece of thin foamcore, knife edge toward the light and the still life, just grazing the rightmost edge of that front block. It’s the distance between the flag and the block that gives it the soft feather. 

[52lightstudies]

Studio Blocks #1

After a 2.5 year hiatus, are we back? I just finished setting up a studio and wanted to explore the light in the space. It’s got a big North Facing window that stays in the shade until about 5pm, and a South Facing window that runs along the entire length of the studio (about 24′) high up (let’s say from 12′-15′ up from the ground).

I took some styrofoam blocks, packing materials for a table I put together, and arranged them and the light for a couple of hours. Remembering some Albert Watson techniques, I got it very dark and then let the light in where I wanted it. It was a fun exercise, one I’ll continue to experiment with. I get the feeling that doing a hundred compositions of these blocks would lead to some interesting pictures.

No diagram today...I know a diagram is the best way to internalize and document what was done, but I had dozens of pieces of stuff shaping the light, and broke em down before I thought to draw a picture.