Lighting can make or break any kind of shoot, and having a deep arsenal of lighting techniques and methods can ensure the lighting invariably makes the shoot.
One of the core, fundamental lessons I teach new photographers is that light is light. A tautology it might be, but its implications are useful. The greatest strobes in the world give off the same kind of light as a lighting fixture from your local store, albeit with different power and temperature. This isn't to say that you wouldn't be better off with a Profoto B1 for a key light, but rather that you can be creative with all the different lights in your scene.
In this video, Aputure and David C. Weldon Jr. go through some creative lighting setups that give off the much coveted, but arguably rather vague, cinematic look. The word "cinematic" is used to generally mean anything of high quality that wouldn't look out of place in a well created production. What really draws me in to the techniques in this video is not necessarily the results — I expected them to be good and they were — but the creativity. Particularly in the case of the Quasar lights crossing each other, and then a rim light for the dancer, creating a low-key, moody, and captivating final scene.
Have you ever created an interesting light setup? Show us in the comments!
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