Rim Lighting

focal length: 55 mm
shutter speed: 1/125
aperture: f/4.5
ISO: 200
flash: single flash fired - camera left

Last week, we worked on using off-camera flash to create a rim of light and separate our subject from a dark background for a dramatic effect.

What do you think?

(The red on the background was caused by a reflection off of a red piece of paper I attached to the flash as a flag to prevent the light from spilling onto the bookcase behind it.)

WORKSHOP - Food Photography Using One Light

focal length: 50 mm
shutter speed: 1/100
aperture: f/4.0
ISO: 400
flash: not fired

Last night, at OAC Photo Club, inspired by Strobist's article about food photography, we decided to make a smaller version of the inside-out soft box (because we didn't have a big enough box) and try our hand at photographing food.

Here's our setup.


Instead of a strobe, we decided to try using a continuous light source, a lamp without the shade. One of us held it above the box so it would shine through the tissue paper acting as a diffuser. The tissue paper covered the opening at the top of the box.

The lamp wasn't bright enough to allow the white pieces of paper to reflect any light onto the red peppers and the pieces of paper may have been too far away to be effective, which I was ok with since I intended to keep one side in the shadows for more drama.

Here are a couple more photos using the same setup.


focal length: 50 mm
shutter speed: 1/100
aperture: f/3.2
ISO: 400
flash: not fired



focal length: 50 mm
shutter speed: 1/100
aperture: f/4.0
ISO: 400
flash: not fired

The box was super easy to make and the lighting is something everyone has at home already. It was so nice to be able to instantly see how the light would fall on the subject because we were using a continuous light source. Give it a try. I'd love to see your results.

Workshop - Product Photography & Creative Lighting

February 3rd, 2010

It was our 3rd meeting this year and we thought we'd do some more shooting. We hadn't brought out the flashes and lighting accessories in a while so for this workshop we set up two stations: product photography and creative lighting for portraits.

Thanks to all those you attended and shared your knowledge and gear. Remember to upload your photos to flickr. The tag will be "0203creativelights"

Here are just a few from the day.












Those are just a few that I shot while our members did a lot more shooting.

For more information about the OAC Photo Club, click the info link or email us at oac[at]dolcepics[dot]com.