Human light stands
I asked Dave Good to help out today by being a human light stand, and going mobile with a light as I shot a lifeguard at a beach in San Diego. I told him to always sidelight the subject and stay about 10 feet away. That way, my exposure remained the same and I could just shoot for moments without worrying about F stops….
Inside the backpack was an Alien Bee generator pack, powering a small Speedotron pack, which was powering a fresnel light, which I converted to strobe some time back.
In 1998 at Syracuse University, National Geographic shooter Bob Sacha came and spoke to our class, and gave a slide show of images he shot under New York – in sewers and tunnels, all dark places. I remember him saying he had an assistant with a light on a stick, always staying X number of feet away from the subject, and when the subject moved, so did the assistant with the light.
Wedding photographers use this technique, human light stands. More recently I’ve been really digging the work of Brian Finke, who seems to do this technique quite a bit. If you have a extra body, it’s always nice!
Jammed inside the backpack was a generator pack, radio slave and Speedotron pack.
Er.... Don't mind me
These boys were itching to get their picture taken, so I did it. They then yelled"what's this for?" Dave the assistant answered: "It's for Gay TV." That got them even more excited. (Don't ask, don't tell).
The light is coming from behind her (left), with human light stand in back seat. In the image on right, my human light stand is standing outside the door, so cool shadows are cast.
"Light stand" in front of car, with both images.
milos wrote:
thanks for the insight
Posted on 15-Jul-09 at 12:42 am | Permalink
Human light stands wrote:
[...] was powering a fresnel light, which I converted to strobe some time back.” Read the whole article here. What do you think, is there a better way to do mobile light stands? __________________ Hi, I’m [...]
Posted on 15-Jul-09 at 6:02 am | Permalink
Jonathan Green wrote:
The first assisting job I ever got required me to be a human light stand for the day. I learnt very quickly you need some decent upper body strength especially on fashion shoots where model and phographer are always on the move. A very good work out.
Posted on 15-Jul-09 at 6:04 am | Permalink
nearthecoast.com wrote:
http://twitter.com/nearthecoast/status/2650502353
http://www.nearthecoast.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3524&p=24109#p24109
Posted on 15-Jul-09 at 4:16 pm | Permalink
Joseph Tichenor wrote:
I love this post! For the past 2 years, I’ve done this with my assistants and even paid a couple homeless people in Vegas to hold a speed light connected to the off camera cable when I couldn’t get my PW cable to work. My last 2 blog post show examples of the assistant holding the light on either a small boom arm or just plain in hand. I started doing this after a couple lights met heavy winds while a student and it works so well for run and gun shooting that it has now become a staple of my environmental work.
Thanks for the great work Rob, You’re the shiznit!
Peace from Minneapolis!
Posted on 16-Jul-09 at 9:45 am | Permalink
jarvie wrote:
You get props for the funny joke to the group of boys!
I get groups asking that from time to time… I need to be quicker on the feet.
Anyway thought you deserved to know your joke made someone laugh a lot.
Posted on 16-Jul-09 at 11:21 am | Permalink
Bruce wrote:
Great photos all around. I found your site while reading Strobist and immediately became homesick for San Diego again. I’m out of town on long term family business, but it was good to see familiar places and faces through the eyes of a fellow photographer. I have grabbed your RSS feed to see more as you post. Nice work Rob, all the best.
Posted on 16-Jul-09 at 1:05 pm | Permalink
Marshall wrote:
I love the proof that every once in a while, well-applied “Simple” just plain works.
Posted on 19-Jul-09 at 11:17 am | Permalink