Steve Aves
Steve Aves - photographic lighting expert
Lighting Guides
"If you've read any of my reviews or lighting guides, you’ll know that I often use images taken by my photographer friend Chris Reeve. I’ve known Chris a long time and I hire his studio from time to time. Over the years I’ve watched his commercial photographic business grow from strength to strength."
"Despite pretty much every camera having its own built in metering system these days, meters are still a very handy tool, especially in the studio as it is here that meters really come into their own.. "
"I was intrigued when I received a press release from the National Portrait Gallery in London, announcing an important photographic exhibition entitled, ‘Gay Icons’ starting this month. "
"Steve Aves visits the Free Range 2009 Art & Design Degree Show in London now in its 9th year the Free Range exhibition is a showcase for graduates from all over the UK to display their work. "
"So in a fairly short space of time Nik has built the photography side of his business up to play a key role now and in the future and he rarely needs to use library images, his aim from the start."
"...Hi Key does have its limitations, for example, what about photographing older people? Hi Key is great for kids, grumpy teenagers and young families, but it doesn’t really suit older people, it doesn’t really do them justice."
"I’ve been getting some emails and questions about shooting food recently and remembered that my chum Chris Reeve shot some really nice stuff for a book last year. I asked Chris if we could meet up and talk about some of his photographs and get some tips on lighting food."
"After a few meter readings and some test shots we were beginning to get some nice stuff. Just a few more subtle adjustments, mainly to keep the light off the background and the results just got better and better."
"For this next shot I wanted to use something different, so I went for the ‘Rolls Royce’ of portraiture accessories, the Bowens Sunlite, Supersoft 600 Diffuser, a combination of reflectors with an outstanding performance."
"The next shot to work on in this series is a little different, a low key shot that creates a very different mood. I just used one head for this a Bowens Esprit Gemini 250 head with a Grid reflector and a Honeycomb."
"I can’t emphasise this enough, it’s always the eyes that make the shot so they say, so make sure you get the catch lights in the right place. Move the light around your subject so that you can get the catch light just inside the darker part of the pupil of the eye."
"What I want to demonstrate here is that you can use two lights successfully using one to light the subject and one to light the background. This set up will give much better results than using both lights to light the subject, which will cause shadow problems."
"I thought that I would start this series of pictures by showing you an easy way to do this using just two lights, one with a brolly and one with a small 60x60cm soft box, basic accessories you get in Bowens kits and most other lighting kits on the market these days."
"The taps, some Chrome, some Nickel and some made of Brass were all tricky to light and shoot. The nickel surface was the most awkward and Chris shot these using the Halostar modelling lamps, setting the Kelvin rating at 2500K."
"So we can use a flash meter to help us adjust our lights to give us a working aperture, to set a ratio to create subtle shadow areas and save us a great deal of time and money whether shooting on digital or film."
"So to sum up, the type of flash tube a manufacturer uses will give a flash head a normal or fast flash duration and with the amber coating as standard be completely compatible with daylight film or digital cameras."
"Continuous lighting is simple and easy to use, what you see is what you get. Flash is more versatile and can tackle anything provided you have the right equipment and accessories."