Light as a Feather

Not my usual style.  Experimenting with ideas.  I might use elements of this aesthetic down the road in a way that more smoothly integrates with the rest of my body of work.  

Light is small reflector with a grid mounted to an AB800.  It’s aimed directly at Mikaela and is high enough to cast shadows beneath her cheekbones.  

Notice the size of the catch light in her eyes.  A very small white circle reveals that I’m either using something smaller than a beauty dish, or a beauty dish that’s very far away (15’ or so).  But, from the way the light falls off so quickly from highlight to shadow, you can tell that the light is fairly close (less than 5’), and from how small the highlighted area on her face is (most of her is in mid-tone), it’s not a large light.  You can also tell the size/quality of the light from the sharpness of the shadows’ edges.  It’s clearly not a large or diffused source.  But all that said, it’s hard to trust that you’re properly reverse engineering the lighting from an image with so many layers of treatment on top of it.  I did, for instance, exaggerate the highlights on her a bit.  

It’s important to know that retouching can change the clues that normally reveal how something was lit.  I’m always skeptical that I’m actually seeing the lighting as it may have looked like in production, that is, coming right out of the camera.