Food Photography: Reflectors and Flags

Which are the most useful instruments to really improve the lighting in your shots? Some panels, white and black colored.

Strange as it may seem often some inexpensive and simply devices make really a difference when we're need to improve the lighting on our photographic sets. These devices are named reflectors and flags.

Reflectors, as the name implies, are reflective surfaces used to bounce the light toward the subject or another part of the set. They could be professional device, expressly made for photographic use, easy to handle, with controlled color casting and built using highly reflective materials.

In the image here you can see some of the professional reflectors made by Lastolite. As you can see they can be found in various shapes and dimensions, and with different reflective materials: white ones give a a neutral reflected light, silver ones tint the light with a cool tone while golden ones produce a warm reflected light, similar to the the light of the sun when is low on the horizon.

Professional reflectors are some of the least expensive lighting equipment and they are very handy especially outdoor as most of them can be easily folded so to fit in a backpack. When in studio (or at your home) you can also use do-it-yourself reflectors that still work fine. I am very fond of my foam panels. They're cheap, light, I can easily keep them straight with a couple of clamps and i can carve an hole onto them so to put my lens through. But everything can be used as a reflector, a cardboard, a mirror, a white wall, everything that can reflect the light, even a little.

You can experiment with reflectors and their placement looking how they reflect the available light onto your scene, even natural light coming out of the window of course. It's a matter of trial and error and personal tastes. Sometimes you want softer and lighter shadows, other times you prefer not, there's no exact rule.

Other times instead we want to block the light. Maybe the light is so much strong and diffused that enters our lens creating unwanted reflections (named "flares" in photographic jargon), other times we want to darken a part of the scene or keep in shadow a side of our subject.

Just like reflectors bounce the light, flags are used to block it. They are usually black panels that are put in between the light and the subject you want to shelter from light. Just think at how you use your hand to shelter the eyes from direct bright sun and you get a very clear example of how flags work: in this case you are flagging your "lens" (the eyes) to avoid flare and excessive exposure. In the image et right you can see the complete range of flags made by Advantage Gripware.

Also in this case you can easily made your own flags instead than buying professional one. Just remember that professional devices are needed when quickness, sturdiness, practicality and flawless results are needed but if you are learning and experimenting do not stop yourself just because you don't want spend money on pro equipment. A black cardboard works the same than a pro flag, just pay attention (as usual) using inflammable materials (like card, cardboard, plastic, fabric, etc) near hot lights (like tungsten lamps).

Before the end of this post I want to talk about a little trick some of you may know, but others probably don't: what I call the "black" reflector. Light bounces around even in the blackest night, go figure in a small room light by the sun or some powerful artificial lighting. So when I want to keep away those unwanted reflections from my subject or scene I use a black flag or panel just if it were a reflector but, being black, it "absorbs" the reflected light from the scene instead than bouncing it in. The concept is very similar to the flags I described above but in this case you don't suppress direct lighting but just the reflections. Run a test and see how it works, it really makes a huge difference in some situations especially when you have a lot of "white" on and around the set.

(Alessandro Guerani is a professional photographer specialized in food shooting. He lives in Bologna, Italy, and is available for assignments to create the images you always craved. Read the "About me" or contact him using the "Mail me" in the blog menu above.)

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