P365 Jul04: Backlit Anna

Once again, Anna was a great sport and modelled for me as I tried to re-create a cool lighting effect I saw in a music video. The video had a cool backlit effect that came from having two lights behind and to each side of the model. I only have two flashes myself, so I was going to have to try and find a way to illuminate the front of the face.

The first shot is essentially only the back lights illuminating the sides of Anna's face. They're a bit over exposed, losing most of the detail. The power levels on the two aren't perfeclty matched and the angles are a bit off too, but for the sake of the exercise, I figured this would do. There's no front illumination here, and Anna's face is way too dark.


Next I tried using the ambient light (the houselights) as fill for the face, but to get this much illumination I had to go to 800 ISO, maximum apeture and 1/20th sec, and still the face is too dark. The result is an improvement, but just not practical.


For the last shot here, I got Anna to hold my 80cm silver reflecter in front of her and just below the view of the camera. The light fill on the face is much better, but still not bright enough to allow me to dial back the rear flashes, which are still a bit too over exposed. Also the angle of the fill light, coming from below, just isn't flattering. To pull this off, I really need a third flash to illuminate the front of the face. A fourth would be needed if I wanted to do any effects with the background. One day I'll revisit the idea!

Thanks for your patience and help Anna!