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

Lindsay Adler

Lindsay Adler is a fashion photographer, educator, and author based in New York City. You can follow her work and see her photography on her website, lindsayadlerphotography.com, or on Instagram @lindsayadler_photo.

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. I decided to create the image indoors using sunlight through a window because this gave me more control over the shot— I could better control the shadows, bounce light, wind, etc. At first, I envisioned this image solely as black and white, and create a super high key look with the clothing, hair, and makeup so that shadows would create a juxtaposition of highlight/shadow. After capturing the image I realized that I could also create a beautiful color grade (toning) for an interesting version in color as well— another great reason to always shoot raw!

I shot these images tethered into CaptureOne using TetherTools and TetherBlock so that I could see the images (histogram, toning, etc) as I was shooting them. Because of the extremely high contrast lighting, I wanted to be sure that I could retain both shadow and highlight detail.

The results, I think, are quite striking. It’s the lighting, the styling, the model, and the post-processing all working together for a successful image. But guess what? Any great image has all elements working together!

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