Go back to basics
It’s clear from Helen’s portraits that she has a good rapport with her models, and has produced some great results. She also has a good grasp of the basic camera settings and composition. But she struggles to control the shadows and lighting on both the models and the background. These problems have meant that she has lost some confidence in setting up her lights, which has had a detrimental effect on her results.
Like most of us, Helen doesn’t have a huge studio space available, and she has had to make the most of shooting in the models’ homes. This lack of space has made it impossible for Helen to experiment with the lighting because the subject is too close to the background, and also offers few options for positioning the lights. In the future Helen is hoping to have access to a slightly larger space, but is keen to learn whether this will help before trying this out. So I meet Helen, along with Antonia, our model for the day, at a small studio to help her take control of lighting.