Broad Photography Lighting - A quick how-to with examples

Let’s talk about broad light! Broad light is a very useful tool in your belt in case you want to shoot a fully lighten full body image or a group portrait. The biggest advantage of broad lighting is that you only need to set your lighting once and need very little adjustments afterward. 

Which means for e-commerce shoots, editorials and anything that has a seamless backdrop (clothing shoot, full body portraits, etc), you get a consistent look and you can focus on other than your light (I got 99 problems but my lighting ain’t one! 🙌). 

Jump! With Cindy Piché Bernier

Below is a behind the scenes and portrait using this setup plus a kicker light for separation. As you can see, the light is fairly high to have even coverage of the subject. This is where the light stand paired with rollers and it’s boom arm comes to play. Also, I angled it slightly to make sure the light hits the background a little some I don’t have to add another light to at the background. The powerful boom arm gives the light 360-degree capability for finite adjustments.

A BTS in the style of Francisco Hernandez.

Unsure about you how you place your light? Use this quick and dirty test: Meter your light at 2-3 different points on your subject as below. As always, use the bulb in your strobe to see where the light hits.

Here’s an example:

That is where a large source of light such as an umbrella comes in handy. This photo metered approximately at f/5.6 all around. If your light values are not similar all around, your probably need to tilt your light in one way or bring it closer to you. Your light will lose some power around the feet due to the inverse square law but it is something we can live with. If you cannot live with it, add a low powered light or a reflector at the feet. (Read more about the law @ Peta Pixel) 

This way, you can be sure you have an even spread of light and colors will not shift too much, which is critical during  e-commerce photoshoot. For extra safety, get yourself a color passport checker.

The biggest disadvantage of broad lighting is the fact that the eyes are sometimes dark since there is no direct light on the subject’s eyes

To fight that, there are 3 solutions.

1) We can take advantage of the eyes glossiness to add a ‘pop’ of light at a very low power so that there is some life into those shiny globes. In the above behind the scenes setup, the Godox AD600 is set as 1/128 power and should not influence at all the exposure since the aperture near 5.6 with a shutter speed of 1/250.

Another example below if the kicker light moved in front of the subject. The effect can be adjusted to your liking depending on your desired look.

A close up of what the effect is - this light was about 10 feet away and you can still see the stripbox shape.

2) Another solution is a nice and big fill light behind you with a very large modifier such as a reflective umbrella for that large pop.

3) Angle your light and lower it to make sure it hits the eyes. However, this solution might be of a disadvantage since it reduces your shooting space or negative space (e.g. if text needs to be added).

Broad light is a great tool also for group portraits for an evenly lighten portrait of 2 to 5 people. Make sure they are close to each other!

Add This For More Production Value

To add a bit of flair to your portraits, think of adding a kicker light on a side of your subject to create separation from the background. It’s pretty useful when you have similar tones or colors. Gel it if you feel extra creative. See the example below - it’s slight but it’s noticeable.

There you have it! If this was useful to you, I discuss light, photography and all that fun stuff on Instagram and Youtube so make sure to follow me on those platforms. On your next shoot, give broad lighting a shot and share them in the Master The Light Facebook group!

Happy shooting,

Yvens