I’ve never been a photographer that gets incredibly fancy with my lighting setups. Sure, when I was in college taking advanced level photography classes I learned a few complicated lighting setups. I’m familiar with strobes, and light boxes, and beauty dishes, and barn doors, etc. etc. But for some reason the more complicated my lighting setup becomes, the more inauthentic the final photograph begins to feel.
I suppose my philosophy would be different if I were a commercial photographer, but I’m not. Photography has always been a practice that I do for myself and only myself.
Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Kodak Tmax 400 speed medium format film.
All of that being said, I’m really proud of myself for the fact that I managed to keep a lot of details in the shadows of this image, despite the fact that there was only one single light source directly at the model’s back coming in from the window. I honestly didn’t expect this image to turn out great at all but through a combination of careful metering and some handy stand development with Rodinal the exact opposite happened.
It was tempting to pull out some artificial lighting and give some illumination either facing the back wall or facing directly toward the model. I’m really glad I followed my instincts and just relied on the natural light available to me.