Environmental Sets: Are They Right for You?

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Environmental Sets: Are They Right For You?

Mark McWilliams

When we first started our studio, we were making modeling portfolios and music demo tapes. Part of my house was remodeled to contain both a camera and record room along with a private dressing area. Back then, most of our photography clients were friends of my fiancé who was enrolled in a local modeling school. One of our goals was to make our photographs look like actual magazine ads. The concept was that this would give an overall commercial appearance and hopefully make it easier for the beginning model when she goes on her first interview.

Soon we began receiving calls from career women and housewives who wanted to make personal calendars to give to their husbands. We found ourselves gradually migrating from modeling-only to boudoir and "sophisticated" glamour sessions. Our ideas were influenced by severally nationally recognized photographers; and we quickly recognized the advantages of having 3-D realistic environmental -- or theatrical -- sets. We wanted our images to be compared with what we were seeing in the best-selling books and videos.

Of course, the first thing we had to do was get a larger space to hold these special sets. The house just wasn't big enough. We "bit the bullet" and rented a large commercial space of which 1,000 sq.ft. could be used as a shooting room. One part of a wall holds conventional roll-paper backgrounds and muslin. But we managed to build six permanent environmental sets around the rest of the room's perimeter. Some of these we had seen in other books. But others were original ideas.

An advantage of boudoir sets is that most can be used for creating commercial images. The same bedroom set in which a wife poses in pretty lingerie can be used to photograph a mother and child saying a bedtime prayer or a teenager telephoning her boyfriend. We needed a realistic outdoor set -- something resembling a backyard bordering a forest. I wanted an ethereal appearance with a small pond of water, lots of flowers, and a gate or fence. But I needed to add different props and accessories quickly. I required both daytime, early evening, and midnight-type lighting while minimizing the time needed to change the lights and gels. And the set had to provide a variety of compositions so I could do close-ups, medium- and full-length crops, each with a different look.

We used 2x12 lumber to create a surface one-foot off the studio floor. Near the front we cut out a hole that would hold our "pond". Instead of adding water and risking interior humidity-related damage, we experimented with colored cellophane. We first lined the 2x4-foot hole with green foamcore board. Then we laid some wrinkled cellophane in the hole and covered the top with more cellophane, making it flush with the new "ground". We inserted 2 minislave units in the hole and covered them with a blue gel.

We took test shots to determine how much diffusion material to add to equalize these units with our regular softboxes and grids. We adjusted the angle of fire from these units so that they would illuminate the cellophane while not spilling over onto the face of a subject who was lying down close to the surface.

We used outdoor carpeting to simulate grass, and I chose on of the Denny Corporation's painted canvas backgrounds. It is a medium-gray which means it could be easily "colored". But the combination of color in the foreground with an almost gray-and-white background gave me that hard-to-define ethereal atmosphere I envisioned. To save expense, we used many min-slave units to provide the background, pond and special kicker lighting (e.g., to highlight a railing, column or vase of flowers). Even at that, we ended up using 12 just on that one set. Some were covered with colored gels to simulate evening and midnight. All were connected to a central switch box and could be toggled on-or-off individually. And since they didn't have built-in modeling lights, it took several weeks of tedious trial-and-error and test-shooting to adjust the illumination angles and diffusion.

But the results were worth it. With all the background lighting fixed in place and switch-selected, all we had to do was choose soft or grid lighting for key and fill and perhaps use a hair-light boom. (We couldn't mount a permanent hair light because not every pose will work on every subject. The three main lights must be mobile.)

In some instances, we created a typical full-length daytime composition, using softboxes for key and fill. Extra versatility can be provided by a double mask or by using a prop like a canopy netting, for instance.

Seated or prone positions can better display the pond. Grid lighting was again utilized. Feel free to add fancy filtration/diffusion over the lens to produce bookcover-worthy images.

Too much of any one thing can be distracting. This applies to the pond as well. Adding a tall vertical prop such as a column minimizes foreground elements. Having the client stand removes the pond entirely. Now you can do conventional daytime shots or midnight. A telephoto lens allows extreme close-ups without moving your stand. Or if you don't want the background to compete with your subject, add a small prop like a bridge.

Thus, one set provided everything from standard headshots to commercial looks to accomplishing our design objective -- and vindicated all the hard work!

Not all our environmental sets required as much thought and work as this one. But each provides its own series of unique images and fills a basic need. Not only do they provide the client with a commercial look, but they already exist in case you ever get assignments from advertising accounts. So you can minimize on-location work -- 365 days-a-year, independent of the outside weather with its inconsistent lighting -- all in the privacy of your own studio. For our work and direction, it was right for us. You have to determine if it is appropriate for you.

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The Rangefinder / April, 1965 / pp.44-47 / Mark McWilliams / Environmental Sets