Lighting

Ryan Gibson, an editorial photographer from rural Georgia, specializes in athletic portraits. One of his favorite places to shoot? Locker rooms. “When I’m working on a feature story, I want to get as much variety as I can from a sitting,” he says. “After we do the field, stands, or courtside shots, I like working in the locker room. Depending on how I use my lights, I can get a lot of different looks there in a short amount of time.”

If you’re ever at the Manhattan terminal of the Staten Island Ferry in the evening, you can catch a great free light show whenever a ferry approaches the dock: What looks like hundreds of fireflies flashing all over the boat. It’s the tourists trying to photograph the Manhattan skyline with on-camera flash.

What happens when you cross an energetic toddler with a complicated lighting setup? You may get very cross yourself—unless you prelight, playing with and working out the lighting well before your model arrives.Chris Strong, a Chicago pro, spent a full day prelighting this portrait of his daughter, just as he does for his commercial assignments. “A prelight day comes into play when you’re working on a shoot that requires exacting light. You rough in your strobes to assure yourself that everything will go smoothly when real shooting starts,” he explains.