Photo Deconstruction: Complex 5 Studio Lighting Setup for Floral Fashion Editorial

Today, I want to share with you one of my more complex fashion shoots, including custom set design, beautiful styling, five different lights, many different modifiers, gels, haze machines and much more.

Two things I love are creativity and sharing, specifically teaching and sharing with other photographers, and so one of my favorite things I love to do every single year is put on intensive workshops.

In these workshops I basically create for other photographers what I love to shoot for myself. Sometimes they're very simple and elegant, other times, they're far more complex.

I want to show you the behind the scenes of one of my photographic workshop images.

The specific one is from a floral workshop (https://workshops.lindsayadlerphotogr...)

During these workshops, I team up with incredible creatives, amazing hair stylists, models, set designers and wardrobe stylists. This set is made by the floral designer, Ivie Joy, so believe it or not, in the image you see here, this is not outdoors. This was completely built indoors at a location called the Foundry in Long Island City.

I envisioned something that looks like a forest at night, lit from behind and streaks so it's mysterious, dreamy and alluring. I left the rest up to Ivie.

I decided I wanted to play with the color red and coordinated with my wardrobe stylist to provide some sort of beautiful red styling, whether it be a dress or a headpiece. What he came up with was this incredible look with a beautiful cape and beading.

After the wardrobe and styling were set I then needed to bring the entire scene to life through my lighting.

📷 Camera settings:

I was using a Canon 5D Mark IV and a 24-105 mm lens. I use a 24-105 because this is a scene that I wanted a wider focal length. I wanted to be able to shoot and include the entire scene. I could have used a 24-70mm, but in this case, I went with 24-105mm.

After the first shot I took I realized that everything looks quite similar, but there are a few things I wanted to improve. First and foremost, one of the problems that I see is that when you introduce haze into a scene, it decreases the contrast. The scene becomes a little flat. What I did in camera raw is not only increased contrast, but I also applied a lens correction. I thought that the scene looked a tiny bit warped. So those are the two changes you see here, as well as popping the contrast on the face.

I also brightened up the face again to direct your eye. Lastly, I tried to figure out where my eye is meant to be. While I look at her facet I'm also drawn to the right hand side of the frame. I wound up darkening down the right hand side of the frame to emphasize those beautiful beams of light on the left. The only other thing you might see added a teeny bit more blue to the shadows just to enhance what was already there from the gels.

One of the things that I wish existed for me as I grew in my photography was understanding what a photographer was thinking and how they were putting together more complex lighting setups. There are a million tutorials out there that take you through the essentials of natural light or using a single softbox, but seldom did I get to peek behind the curtain of a more complex setup. So for many of you, you may not have five lights and a custom set design, but as you look at this entire scene, as you look at this image, you might begin to see how you could do something similar in your own scenes or maybe with one or two or three lights.

Then as you grow and progress as a photographer, it will change the way you think and the way that you approach things. So hopefully I'm helping you in your growth and your journey as a photographer!

📸 Gear:

✅ Canon 5DIV: https://adorama.rfvk.net/3aJnn
✅ Canon 24-105mm 4.0: https://adorama.rfvk.net/KG0ne
✅ Profoto D1s and D2: https://adorama.rfvk.net/qvB7y
✅ Profoto Zoom Reflector: https://adorama.rfvk.net/MVLjn
✅ Profoto Barn Doors: https://adorama.rfvk.net/yv1EG
✅ Profoto XL White Deep Umbrella + Diffusion https://adorama.rfvk.net/bKGzg
✅ Blue and Red Gels (Lindsay Adler Gel Kit): http://lindsayadler.photo/gelkit

🔥 If you feel like you might need a kick start to your creativity you might find my Magic of Gels class interesting. I go over a variety of ways you can use gels creatively, check it out here: http://lindsayadler.photo/gels

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