Spectrum

Location Lighting Made Easy with Rick Friedman

Written by Frank Lambrechts | September 15, 2015

We’ve got a brand new kit of light-control materials available for photo and video professionals to use when they venture outside the studio – The Location Lighting Filter Kit. The kit was designed by photographer Rick Friedman to represent his “must-have” Rosco materials that he’s relied on during his 30+ years as a photographer. This kit not only has correction & effect color filters, it also has Rick’s favorite Rosco diffusion – Toughspun – and a piece of Photofoil blackwrap!

Rick previewed the Location Lighting Filter Kit during one of his world-famous Location Lighting Workshops at B&H Photo  in New York.  The goal of the two-hour workshop was to demonstrate different portrait lighting setups, while showcasing some of the materials inside the kit. Even though the workshop was held in the controlled confines of the B&H Classroom, Rick’s presentation showed how easy the techniques he shared could be used anywhere your next photo shoot takes you.

 

Rick’s workshop started with a simple, single-strobe setup and ended with an elaborate lighting setup that included a custom, projected background. His model, Hillary Marie, stood in front of a plain white backdrop that Rick turned into an engaging, colorful background using the materials inside the Location Lighting Kit.  In this simple setup he is using a Dynalite Baja B4 strobe, which is shot through a Dynalite medium soft box.  On the right side of the model's face is a Sunbounce Micro-Mini reflector, while behind her is a Nissin MG8000 flash that has a CalColor #4960 60 Lavender gel on it to create a vibrant-colored hair light around her.

The main light in the next setup used the same Dynalite Baja B4 400WS strobe, but with a 20 degree grid to narrow the beam.  The front of the strobe was also wrapped in Rosco PhotoFoil in such a way that he could illuminate the model while keeping the light from the strobe from hitting the backdrop.

Behind the model's head is a Nissin Di866 flash with a Roscolux #74 Night Blue gel, which provided the blue highlights around her hair.  To create the background, Rick cut a custom pattern out of a sheet of PhotoFoil and hung it from a small boom in front of his Nissin MG8000 that was covered in CalColor #4290 90 Blue gel.   The photograph was shot using a Nikon D800 with a Nikon 105mm macro lens that was connected to his computer with a TetherTool cable, which allowed him to show the workshop attendees the images that he’d captured.

To learn more photography tips from Rick Friedman, and to see more of the images he’s created using the Rosco materials inside the Location Lighting Filter Kit, visit his Tuesday’s Tips PhotoBlog. Also make sure you catch one of his Location Lighting Workshops the next time he comes to a city near you. In the mean-time, you can watch a condensed, 30-minute version of the workshop Rick held at B&H Photo on their YouTube Channel.