This was one of the first shoots in my career where the pressure wasn’t on the layout count, but more on the amount of time I had to shoot my subject. In the Philippine landscape, having at least thirty minutes to an hour to photograph a high profile celebrity or politician was normal; but for Hollywood actress Freida Pinto, I had only half an hour to shoot a group shot, a solo, and a solo with a drink. All the lights had to be calculated perfectly, and most importantly, glitch free.

I’m going to put it out there and just say that slave tech was once upon a time the coolest thing, but has never been reliable. I am absolutely grateful for what Godox has been doing (not a sponsored post) with their built in receivers. Back then, I was using 600w Rimelites, and Pocket Wizard triggers/receivers, which I only had one set of. This meant that my main light had to flood the room with enough power to trigger the rest of the lights to pop, which was by itself not the most ironclad setup. Noting to myself as well that back then I wasn’t willing to spend extra money on contingencies—I wanted more money to bring home; obviously a very naive way of thinking.

Lights today are so much more convenient—built in receivers means you don’t need to slave.

My main light for Freida was on an octabox set on the left side of the frame, positioned high and angled down, give or take two meters away from her. A stripbox was set straight and proportioned to her height, feathering a little bit of fill light to counter the shadows and create separation from the background. She stood maybe two to three meters away from the background, to lessen the fall of light on it. A grand softbox with a single layer of diffusion was used as a general fill light as well as catch light, which was positioned behind me.

Extra note to this: using the inverse square law, you can change the intensity of the color/brightness of a background by using distance. Given that in all scenarios your light source and subject carry a constant distance apart and that your settings don’t change, the intensity of your background will change if your subject and light move closer or further to it. The closer everything is to the background, the more saturated and bright your background is, and the further away you are, the less it is.