Studio Lighting

Last year for my birthday my boyfriend got me the BEST gift EVER - and by that I mean he really thought about this and how I would use it and it really changed how I do business. He got me a EZCube light kit. The kit had two different sizes of soft boxes, 3 studio lights, and accessories for photographing jewelry. With the soft boxes I am able to make small items look like gallery art and the lights can be used with or without the boxes to create professional looking photographs. 

Now, I have an extensive photography history dating back to high school, so I have/had an idea of what to do with lighting already. But the kit makes everything so easy anyone can do it. To illustrate the difference this is a picture taken in my office with sunlight passing through the curtains. Now, the curtain I have up casts a peach sheen into the room and no matter what setting I changed on my camera, it still picked it up. If there is no sun and I must use an overhead light, it will generally look "off" when photographing clothing.

This is a picture taken with all 3 studio lights set up. There is a halo light, a small light with diffuser, and a large light with a diffuser. If my office was wider, I would be able to put the lights in ideal areas - but with low ceilings and not a lot of room I was somewhat pleased with how these turned out. As you can see, the weird sheen from the curtain is avoided and you can see where the lights are positioned by the shadows on the wall. The studio lighting also picks up true colors MUCH better - especially noticeable in the pic of the kimono where it has a black background and multicolored neon flowers. BUT - I was not liking the shadows AT ALL. I did not like that is looked like "museum" lighting since such lighting would be more appropriate for a vase or lamp. So....onto the third lighting set up.

I removed the halo light since it was causing the gray cast in the upper left hand corner. I also lowered the two cube lights with the diffuser covers to the floor and pointed them upwards. I put "daylight" swirl bulbs in the ceiling light and turned that on - as well as removed the curtains completely from the windows on a sunny day.  As you can see now, all that light has allowed for a white background, solid colors, good contrast, saturation, and realistic in terms of actual colors.

I haven't used the jewelry props yet, but maybe in the next couple of weeks I will be able to show how that turns out :)