Anoush poses in the studio…

Waiting to depart, Mariana relaxes awaiting her call.  This photo was taken using three lights (one was overhead and aimed into the candles with a warming gel to create the “glow”)

This photo comes from a periodic series of photos of dancers.

This was an interesting portrait to take as it involved seven lights with careful metering of each to get the intended ratios.

The main light was a Ring-flash which gives even and shadowless light to the face.

This is Courtney – photographed recently in a big old warehouse, not that you can tell from this.

This photo inside “the Blue Mosque” in Istanbul was taken under special-permit conditions.

An overhead shot of steamed rice, garlic spring onion, and chilli tomato with beef.  This photo is for a forthcoming recipe book, so the rest will have to stay under wraps for now – but trust me, it tasted mighty fine.

Anne poses under a single spot

Once again, less is more.  In this case, a single light carefully positioned for effect.  Nothing too fancy, but plenty interesting.

Anne

This picture is from a series taken with a single strip light behind and to one side of the model.  Working with a single light is both easy and challenging – easy as there’s only one light to set up, but challenging in that very small movements can completely change the look-and-feel of the image.

Jimmy under semi-soft light

Here’s another pic made with just a single softbox as the light source. In this case camera-right.  I decided not to put the front diffusor on the softbox so it only used the white plastic disc over the flash head, and the intermediate diffusor half-way back in the box.  This ensured the light was soft, but not quite as soft as it could be – perhaps more suitable with model J.  This “not quite soft” effect can be seen in the transition from light to shadow across his face (a softer light would provide a smoother transition)

I was working with model Ashely Jones recently, we had a great photo-shoot and once again the beauty of one-light was clear.  While additional lights may have taken this in a more complete direction, the simple effect of a single light is not to be underestimated (in this case a 90 x 100 Elinchrom softbox)