You may have seen on my Instagram page that I have been shooting tulips against my Lightbox recently. It was a good way to highlight the details of their petals, which become gloriously evident as they age.
If you read my previous blog you will have noted that I warned against diffusing light with coloured materials. Well it just so happens, that when using my lightbox, I myself made a mistake in this vein this week!
When shooting on the lightbox, I wanted to bounce the light back onto the tulip’s centre so I was using a mini reflector, something which I do quite often. In this instance, I initially elected to use the silver side of the reflector as opposed to the golden side. If you look at the above image you will see the tulip I captured. The purity of the white of the lightbox is maintained. However the following day, given the tulip was a beautiful shade of yellow, I used the golden side and consequently the bright white light of the Lightbox became pale yellow - see below! As it happens, I find the pale yellow to be quite attractive but the inconsistency didn’t sit well on instagram and it so annoyed me that it wasn’t an artistic decision but was blatantly a mistake on my part.
My slip up aside, reflectors can be very useful to help us to maximise available light. Even before pressing the shutter I am carefully studying the impact of the reflector on my subject, watching closely at the camera’s rear display. In this way I am prepared as to where, and at what angle, I should position the reflector - getting it to fill the light exactly where I want it to when I come to take the shot. This process, and that of diffusing, are important in the discipline of being aware of the quality and placement of the light. Just as they are hugely useful with portrait work they can be very useful for macro. Just don’t do what I did, but make conscious creative decisions!!