Beetle Beauty

Beetle Beauty, a photo by aknacer on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
View full behind the scenes video at Phlearn.com
Lighting

We wanted to keep the lighting fairly simple in these images in order to show off the detail of the beetles, but not become a distraction. It is also important that while the key light is almost directly straight on, that shadow and highlight definition are maintained. If you use a light source that is too large at such a close distance you will wind up with images that don't have a clear boundary between highlight and shadow.

For the key we used an 11-inch Long Throw reflector, usually reserved for point lights. Because it was so close to our subject, and only a small area needed to be lit, the falloff was not an issue here. This harsh light provides nice highlight detail while also producing shadows.

For the background we used 2 strip lights pointed towards a white seamless. The lights hit the seamless, exposing it properly and because the surface is white, it allowed a lot of light to be reflected. Some of this reflected light came back and hit the back side of the model, giving a faint rim light.