Small Flash - Use Spill Light Creatively

You can use the light that spills over an object to your advantage. When you use light in this manner you ignore and skip shooting into the main source of the light and use the spill light as your main light.This creates a light that looks like it was shot through a snoot. The advantage of using this setup is that you can use more subjects in the shoot and not use a lot of snoots to achieve the same result.

If this seems hard to follow just take a look at the photographs that show how this is done. I made a reflector box from a piece of foam core. The reflector box is very similar to a strip box light. You place your remote flash or flash with a slave inside the box and just lay the foam core box on the floor. Point the opening toward the front of a sofa, chair or anything that will block the main part of the light and let some light spill over just slightly. Your subject will be near the area where the light spills over.

If you have a strip box, you can use that for this shot. The advantage of the foam core is that you do not have to worry about laying it on the floor and it is also very easy to angle the top edge of the foam core without moving any other part of the setup.  

My subject was my cat, which is an excellent to work with model, by the way. With an on or off camera flash point toward the other flash you can now take a test shot for proper exposure. If you do not have a flash head that will rotate then you can connect your flash by a flash sync chord and hand hold the flash pointing it in the direction of the other flash on the floor. If you have pocket wizards, then you control your flash without using the additional camera flash.

Here is the setup. The foam core reflector has a slight upward angle. Look closely and you can the cat on the sofa. You can always click on the pictures below for a larger view.

The light just slips over the edge of the sofa pillows and onto the face of the cat. 

The flash unit is just inside of the foam core box and is pointing to the rear of it so that all light that comes out of the box is reflected light.

It does not have to be a sofa to create this shot. Anything that blocks the main part of the light and allows it to spill over will work. (gobo)


This is how the light actually looks when it is spilling over the sofa cushions.

The final results................

I angled the reflector more for a slightly wider light coverage for this shot.











Just think of the possibilities with this setup. You can place several subjects in this setup. If you want to add a subject behind the front subject you can use a snoot for that one. Lots of options are available.


Now you have another method of lighting with a small flash to add to your arsenal.

Until next time.....Stephen H Causey