A Behind The Scenes Look At An Action Figure Photo Session

It doesn’t matter what kind of photography you do, you need to think about, look for, crave, fall in love with, lust after, etc. LIGHT.

When I lived in Japan, my friends there called me (光と影の戦士) Light and Shadow Warrior. I am a freak about light. Sometimes I call myself a “light hunter.” For me, every image really starts with the light. If I see beautiful light and the subject is not my favorite, I’ll still make an image because I am so attracted to great light.

This is a very simple (hopefully inspirational) article about light so I won’t turn it into a white paper on the subject. But I do at least want to touch on the essential characteristics of light.

They are…

• Intensity (or quantity) of light
• Color of light
• Direction of light
• Quality of light (hard or soft)

Since I MAKE photographs — I don’t TAKE photographs, I am always thinking about light. As a bird photographer, I have to front or backlight my scenes. If I am making landscape photos I like to sidelight my scenes (to bring. out texture.) You get the idea.

Since I started doing studio photography (remember my first year of the pandemic was spent photographing my guitar collection in the studio) I have the luxury of building the light for each photo from scratch.

While the phrase “natural light” is popular, I prefer think all light is “natural.” If it comes from the Sun or from a studio strobe. I tend to discuss the “manufactured” light I create in studio as opposed to the opposite — which is how most people discuss light, i.e., “natural” light — being light from the Sun either outdoors or coming through a window or door indoors.

To demonstrate how important this is I will use a simple CLOWN PHOTOGRAPH I made — (I highlighted CLOWN because I know some people get freaked out by clowns — so you’ve been warned.)

Let’s start with figure one.

This is a 6-inch action toy figure of the clown in the book/movie “It.”

It is lit only by the ambient light in my studio which comes from a light fixture in the back of the room.

Using the characteristics of light — intensity, color, direction and quality — I want to construct a photograph that tells a story, and brings the character to life.

Since the clown has red hair, I want to accentuate that. So I am using a Profoto C1 Plus with the Profoto Clic Creative Gel Kit.

The C1 is billed as a smartphone studio light that fits in the palm of your hand. While I have MANY square or rectangular LED lights — and many of them are small, lightweight and more than capable of working with smartphones, the C1 is unique. It is round and sometimes I prefer that round shape. It also works with a series of magnetic modifiers which include magnetic gels that you can insert between the light and the domed diffuser.

In this image, I wanted to (as I almost always do — even though it is counter-intuitive) start from the back. I find that starting from the back of the image and working forward usually yields more creative results. So I paced the C1, with a red gel, behind the clown and between the clown and the background — which is a set from ExtremeSets.com made for diorama work.

You can control the intensity of the C1 from a smartphone or using simple + or — controls on the light. I used a fairly low power for this image and this means I considered the light’s INTENSITY and made my creative choices by dialing down the light so it wouldn’t overpower the scene.

This created a nice rim light — (backlight) on the clown, created separation and depth, and it accentuated his red hair.

You can see the result of this approach in figure two.

This really separates the clown from the background, adds drama, depth and highlights his red hair — so I achieved my goals with that light.

Now, what about the rest of the picture?

Really all we need is a fill light from the front to finish this image off before sending it to post.

I could have used a reflector or just about any other light, but I had it already mounted so I used the Raya Bi-Colored LED light described here — on my PictureMethods site.

I wanted to control the DIRECTION of light so I pushed the light PAST the clown’s face so that it just barely opened up the camera left side of the face. I didn’t point the light directly at the clown. This would be too harsh and two flat. I used a technique called FEATHERING the light so it just brushed past the clown’s face. (Watch my pal Vanelli from Photodocus.com describe how this works if you’re not familiar — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q5YPk9Isiw) I also controlled the COLOR of the light by dialing it to 3200 Kelvin. (The Raya lights are bi-colored — meaning you can change the color — not all LED lights offer this feature.) I wanted a warmer tone to the light since the backlight was red. I also once again controlled the INTENSITY of the light by dialing it down to its lower power. Lastly, I controlled the QUALITY of the light by moving it as close as possible to the clown without it entering the frame. The closer the light is to the subject, the softer it is. I know it’s counter-intuitive, but that is how it works. Try it for yourself.

In figure three above, you can see it’s subtle, but there is a little more light on the clown’s face, camera left. (NOTE: I could have also lit the clown’s face camera right, but this would have created a flat light which I find boring. Light illuminates and shadows define so I like to always allow for some shadow in the picture to create more depth, do some layering and make it more realistic — of course I am discussing lighting a 6-inch toy action figure of a fictional character written by Mr. King, so realistic is a relative term here!)

The final step in the process was to bring the image into post, tune it up by removing the hot spots from behind the clown’s pants, dodging the face just a tad to open it up slightly more, do some basic sharpening and then add a composite layer of smoke — screened back — which is supposed to illustrate the stench that comes with the clown — hey — it’s all fiction so I can tell any story I want.

The finished image appears below.

Could I have done more? The answer is yes. But I wanted to keep this article short so you can concentrate on the basics. And whether or not you like the final photo, you can learn from the process I described to make it.

CONCLUSION

Seeing light is one of the most important skills you can learn in photography — no matter what your subject or what kind of camera you use. Learn to see and understand light and you’ll find your images making more of an impact.

Sony A7C and Tamron 28–75mm F/2.8 Di III VXD G2 lens, mounted on a Platyball connected to my Oben tripod.

ISO 50 — f/2.8–0.3 seconds exposure — zoomed all the way out to 75mm.