How to light location photography – Belfast. This location is Belfast’s oldest bar. I did a quick shoot while over there offering photography training, to do something a little different. the model is from an agency and her styling is her own.

How did I create this?

This place was DARK , the background exposure is iso 200, f2 at 1/10th of a second. So set up for that to render the bar lights as is and the rest dark. I couldn’t move the customer sat at the table so had to keep those dark. The key light is a studio strobe in a large softbox, feathered to give a gentle loop pattern with the dark wall camera right acting as subtraction to give me modelling and contrast.

The glass was added with coke in to give the impression of a drink within the bar and to add a little storytelling and context. The exposure was set at F3.2 which was the lowest I could get from the light and it’s position, this meant that the background went dark and the lamps didn’t over power the scene.

You can see other lighting diagrams with explanation on my blog.