A while ago, I was commissioned to shoot several campaign images showing the protagonists of the Gelders brand. The agency wanted a less polished and commercial look, so we ensured the lighting complemented this request. Harsh shadows and dramatic lighting made for a compelling visual.
One of the scenes was set in an interesting-looking shipyard. When we visited the locations before the actual shooting days, we saw that based on the time of day we needed to shoot, the sun was giving us a window of approximately 10 minutes where it would hit the set we wanted to. But because we needed to shoot multiple setups within this scene (wide-angle and close-ups) and not risk the fact that it could be an overcast day, we chose to mimic the sunlight ourselves. By placing three broncolor Scoro packs, each with a Pulso 4 head, up high on lightstands, we not only managed to mimic the natural direction of the sun but also had full control over how much light would hit our scene. These lights coming through the slightly diffused windows ended up being the only lights we used to light our subject.
To make a scene feel natural, I always like to see what the exciting light is already doing and complement, add, or remove lights where needed to create the desired look. This was also the case for the motorcycle garage scene.
While we were doing the location scout, we saw the sunlight hitting the workshop beautifully, and we all liked the effect it gave to the scene. However, due to our shooting schedule and the availability of the workshop, the sun would be on the opposite side of the building. So again, we went for the option to create sunlight ourselves by placing two broncolor Scoro packs, each with a Pulso 4 head, outside the windows shining in. Inside, we used the existing light coming from the fluorescent tubes as our base layer, underexposing it by 1 stop and unscrewing the ones above our model.
We then used a light stand with a boom arm to hang a broncolor Siros 800 with a Softbox 30x180 cm above the model to act like the light coming from the fluorescent tubes, but having control over the output and the spread of light. To fill in the shadows cast by our stripbox from above, we added a second light, a broncolor Siros 800 with a Softbox 30x120 from the camera's right side to gently light up the face of the model.
