Shooting on the Brooklyn Bridge - Lighting Tutorial

Jun 11 2009

Shooting on the Brooklyn Bridge – Lighting Tutorial

Published by Yanik at 7:36 am under Lighting Tutorials,TUTORIALS

As most of you know, my friend Martin and I went to visit our good buddy and fellow pro photographer Joey Lawrence in New York city not long ago. He needed our help choosing rooftop furniture for his new pad so we were happy to fly down and give him a hand. Hehehehe. Ok, maybe not, even though we did go to Ikea and helped out. It also goes without saying that we took out our cameras a few times in NYC.

But the most fun I had was doing this improvised shoot on the Brooklyn Bridge. We basically took turns shooting each other once everything was set up. Before I get into the lighting details, here’s a list of the equipment we used:

Nikon D3
Nikkor 12-24mm lens (bad ass lens!)
4 x SB-800s
4 x Pocket Wizards
1 shoot through umbrella
2 x Manfroto clamps with ball heads

Since Joey shoots Canon (we still love you Joey!) and Martin and I had all the lights, we used his D3.

We set up 2 SB-800s on the Manfroto clamps and secured them to the bridge rail on camera right at around 30 degrees behind the model. We would have liked the lights to be higher by around 2 feet but we were limited t the rail’s hight. The sun was acting as a backlight on camera left. We taped the other 2 SB-800s together and secured one on an umbrella clamp and secured the umbrella.

Now, we wanted the sky to be as dark as possible which is pretty difficult to do when the sun is your backlight so we did what we could…. cranked up our 4 SB-800s to full bad ass power! At full power, we were able to bring our aperture down to f16 at 1/125 sec and ISO 100. Also important to note is how close the lights are to the model. The diagram is pretty accurate. The speedlights had to be that close to compete with the sun.

You’re probably wondering why we used Pocket Wizards and not another SB-800 on camera to trigger the flashes. The answer is simple. The sun was so bright that we didn’t want to chance missfires from the CLS system. In any other circumstance we probably would have taken my D300 and used the built-in flash in commander mode to trigger the strobes.

All right here are the final shots!

All you need are 4 speelights, the sun and a cool place to shoot!

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20 responses so far

20 Responses to “Shooting on the Brooklyn Bridge – Lighting Tutorial”

# Davide Zerillion 11 Jun 2009 at 8:47 am

I love your work and your tutorials!
And these photos are Amazing Yanik!
What have you done in photoshop? can we see an original to appreciate your work?

Thanks to be always here to teach us how to work!

Davide
My Portfolios
# Ericon 11 Jun 2009 at 9:43 am

The shots are absolutely amazing Yanik
# TCon 11 Jun 2009 at 10:06 am

Great shots, your diagram doesn’t show it clearly, but you had two flashes firing into the umbrella, right?

Any chance of a tutorial on that bad ass post processing you’ve done on those shots?
# Chrison 11 Jun 2009 at 12:57 pm

Thanks for sharing your tips on how you shot the pictures on the Brooklyn Bridge. Very cool…
# Tommyon 11 Jun 2009 at 2:13 pm

Yanik – are these images directly from the camera or did you do some post-processing on them? All three images have an HDR look to them, which is why I am inquiring.
# Jeremyon 11 Jun 2009 at 5:09 pm

Can you do a tutorial on the pp for these images? Very cool shots.
# Jamieon 11 Jun 2009 at 6:35 pm

Whoa! Was anything done in post??
# Yanikon 11 Jun 2009 at 8:55 pm

Thanks for your comments guys! It’s a good idea to show you how I did this in post. I’ll write a post on it soon…. just finishing up a 5 day shoot in Albany. Will be heading home on Saturday so I’ll have it up within the next few weeks.
# Loganon 12 Jun 2009 at 8:33 pm

Great tutorial Yanik, and a great Idea for a shoot… but what I really want to know is how you got the awesum gritty urban look to the images in post!!!
# Martinon 12 Jun 2009 at 11:41 pm

By the way faithful YPS readers, the cool dude in the third photo is in fact Mr. YPS in person. Yeah, I knew you’d like that info! Cheers!
# Chris Bohnhoffon 13 Jun 2009 at 9:31 am

Definitely nice drama and attitude. The second one especially works compositionally with the cables.
# Photoframdon 13 Jun 2009 at 12:01 pm

I think he “forgot” to say the photos were post-processed with Topaz Adjust.
# Michael Scotton 14 Jun 2009 at 4:56 pm

Awesome shots, Yanik, you look Russian mafia in your portrait. Nice use of Topaz, I would hazard to guess too!
# Anthony Con 14 Jun 2009 at 4:59 pm

I enjoy checking in with your blog and really dig these shots, middle one especially. And if that’s really you in the bottom image, may I sujggest an eye patch to complete the sinister look!
# cheri seymouron 18 Jun 2009 at 4:11 pm

Love these shots! Great tut!
# udion 21 Jun 2009 at 3:19 am

Yanik,
those are awesome pictures from the Brooklyn bridge. love the hand poses and the suit up.
# Travison 02 Jan 2010 at 8:52 pm

Did you ever post a tutorial on the Post Processing you did on these photos?
# Amandaon 26 Apr 2010 at 5:30 pm

Hi Yanik,

Awesome tutorial and I love the photos, my favorite is the 1st one

I’m also wondering what you did for the post on these as well, I love the gritty look of these, will there be a tutorial on this?

Thanks,
Amanda
# Travison 07 May 2010 at 9:23 pm

Hey Yanik,
Me again. When are you going to post a tutorial on the post processing of these pics?
# Travison 16 Jul 2010 at 10:23 am

Tutorial on the post processing??????? PLEASE??????