DIY Creative Lighting Fashion Shoot | Inside Fashion and Beauty Photography with Lindsay Adler

Can you create eye-catching creative lighting with nothing more than a cheap party decoration? Well… yes of course you can, with the right knowledge! DIY creative lighting can look refined and truly stunning if you do it right! Just because it's high-end fashion photography or even a portrait doesn’t mean that a good ‘ole DIY approach can’t achieve the elegance you need! The sun is a perfect light source of inexpensive creativity; it creates hard light with defined shadows, and this is exactly what I need for casting creative shadows. One of my favorite techniques is to hold something (anything!) in between the sun and my subject to create unusual, visually stimulating patterns of light and shadow on the face. This particular shoot involved a few key ingredients: (1) Light Source: Direct sunlight was perfect to crate crisp shadows. (2) “Shadow Caster”: I used an inexpensive ($7) star party decoration to create a star pattern on her face and clothing. I hung multiple from a C-stand arm to give me more control and flexibility. (3) Background: I placed a V-Flat World V-Flat directly behind the subject with the white side toward the camera. The sunlight through the window created graphic and visually interesting highlights/shadows to use for my composition. (4) Reflector: The sun was high in the sky, so I used a reflector to create catchlights and add life/sparkle to the eyes. Here I used a Lastolite Triflector to hold a silver bounce reflector. I chose a smaller reflector so it could easily fit between me and the window without obstructing my movement. (5) Camera Gear: For this shot, I selected the Canon R5 (great eye tracking and resolution) as well as the Canon RF 50mm 1.2 (super sharp and I could get closer and mid-length shots with a single focal length while also softening the background). Camera Settings: ISO 200 1/2000 F2.8 The key to this image was the careful placement of the shadows on the subject to create visually compelling compositions.