SOFT BOX

LIGHTING - Studio flash lighting

There are a number of methods to light your subject with studio flash heads, but here we will be looking at two of these, the ‘soft box’ and ‘umbrella’.

The soft box is a great lighting system for portraits and product shots. It is a flexible material with a highly reflective inner surface that is attached to a flash head. The ‘box’ is held in place by metal strengthening wires. The whole device can be packed into a carrying bag for transport. The flash heads can be fired by a direct cable to the camera, or by using a remote. Only one flash needs to be triggered by the remote, this in turn will fire any other heads as ‘slaves’. The idea of the box format is that it spreads light over a large area and is therefore soft, perfect for portraits in much the same way as window lighting. The image of Mark (d) shows how soft and window-like the soft box light is.

The umbrella works in much the same way but is open. The flash head fires at the inside of the brolly (i), which is aimed at the subject, so it is reflected light and does not pass through the umbrella to the subject. The flash head can be either a studio head, or a portable as in (i).

I made this portrait (a) of Egyptian actor and film maker Karim El Hakim with just two soft box lights. One above and behind him, the second was on the floor pointing away from him, aimed at a white table. This gave a softer frontal light that reflected back and illuminated his face. I added a digital background and sword to the shot of Karim. Karim is in the 3rd episode of the Netflix series ‘Paranormal’.