Lesson 104, Blue Grass Musician

Here are two EGOs up on books - a slight underlit portrait of our hat wearing musician, George Downing, folkie extraordinaire of Silver Plume, Colorado.

The trick here is to light the background (hintergrund) with one of the two EGOs while at the same time "broad" lighting our "talent".

Again, as with the earlier portraits, we use both the light and a reflector card as close as possible to the subject and avoid any source light from the EGO reaching the camera lens to avoid flare.

Lesson 103, Male Executive (almost) Portrait

Certainly the cheapest corporate model I know - me. This is a ONE EGO example.

The need for a simple, quick and "kind" portrait with a digital camera is rampant - for the news release or corporate PR portrait. The built in flash will not cut it. So - get an EGO, find a table and small tripod positioned next to a white or warm neutral wall - and you're in business - corporate business.

Again, keep the EGO as close as possible to the subject. Avoid having the EGO direct any light (aka flare) into the lens. Keep the light at eye level of the subject. If there is no white wall, place a large piece of white paper or white card opposite the EGO - OK, the wall is dark brown - sneak a couple of push pins into the wall to hold up the white card. The more white cards the more "kindly" the portrait- one underneath the subject is an excellent idea.

Lesson 102, Portraiture

Probably the first thought to use or aquire a small broad light source is in order to make portraits or small products photographs. This is our starting point. A couple of notes before we begin - Lowel Light's website for EGO and the recent article in the Circuits section of the New York Times. And the various one EGO setups on the Lowel website.

This blog will attempt most solutions with two or more EGO units. Please feel free to question, comment and submit photos to us. We will post the photos with our comments on regular posts.

OK, here's our girls featured on the LOWEL site. But here we have two EGOs side by side placed at our subject's eye level by placing them on several of the nearest books we can grap - hopefully you live in a huge city and phone books will suffice. If there is a rule of thumb, the light source should be the same size, as in this case, to our subject - three smallish girls - and the closer (up to seeing the light source) the better.

Note our small reflector card - one comes with each EGO and the larger the better. If you can place your subject next to a white or neutral colored wall, even better. Human beings do not usually see how dark the room really is - the addition of a reflector of a white or silver material is a great asset. Again, should be at least the size of the light source or larger. The example here is too small.

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