Experimenting is a great way to be able to find things you like. As I mentioned before in a previous blog post. I'm the kind of person who gets easily stuck in his ways. When it comes to types of headshots we haven't experimented much. But that is changing today. Peter Hurley and Evoto Ai are hosting a headshot contest that is due well in 4 days from when we are writing this, So today we are reshooting headshots for our wonderfully talented Melissa Mae(Book her for all your acting needs). Now we did these headshots for her maybe a year and a half ago or so. From what I remember this was a 2 light setup as at the time we only had 2 FJ400's. We had FJ400 with a Godox beauty dish and grid. And an FJ400 behind her to light the backdrop.


Now today we are reshooting her headshots for this competition. And we want to be able to try something new. I (George) am a big fan of mixing both hard and soft lighting so my initial idea is this:


1. FJ800 with a 70degree reflector and grid to light the face.

2. FJ400 on a boom with an Apollo Strip to work as a hair light.

3. Fj400 with an Apollo Strip w/ grid to lightly light the backdrop.

4. FjWestcott Eyelighter 3 Silver that will be hit by the FJ400.

5. Easiframe Grunge Backdrop


The idea may change as we shoot her headshots. I truthfully have already given up on the idea of the Eyelighter 3 and am considering swapping it out with an FJ200 and a Mega Apollo on it so that it can just lightly fill in the shadows on Melissa. We also plan on having her standing about 6ft from the backdrop so that should help not hit the backdrop as much. The other idea that I am also not fully sold on is the 70 degree reflector. I am just slightly concerned that it may be just a bit too harsh. Sam showed me some photos from Chris Knight last night where an Optical Spot for sure seemed like it was used. Now I don't think traditionally optical spots are used much for headshots? But being able to make the light that will hit her can be soft, and not have any harsh shadows on her and having complete control seems great. Melissa being an actress I think gives us a little bit of wiggle room with our technical creativity we can do on her headshots.


But bare with us for a few blank spaces below as we fast forward a few hours to our shoot with Melissa and we will see how it goes.....


As I knew I would.. I caved and decided to add an FJ200 with Mega JS Apollo but didn't replace the eyelighter 3. The results actually came out great. The lighting pretty much stayed exactly the same as I had planned but just added the FJ200. I was super happy with how everything turned out. The 70 degree reflector actually looked incredible with the grid. Out of curiosity on the second look we tried the optical spot and it honestly looked great. Overall trying something new was such a fun thing to do. It was nice to get out of my comfort zone instead of sticking to our typical 5 light set up on white.