Nick’s headshot with a homemade ring light

Posted by Craig | Filed under lighting, setups, studio

Nick headshot

(Photos of the setup are below)

Shooting with Nick was a lot of fun. He was really laid back and up to try anything. I spent about a half day with him before he was heading back to New York to finish up at NYU. He just got a part in an off Broadway play, so he was really excited to go back to NYC with new headshots.

After doing all of my usual natural light setups with reflectors and such, I busted out my new ring light (some people call it a ring flash, but it doesn’t flash, so I’m sticking with ring light). My dad and uncle are both talented woodworkers and electricians. I showed them a ring light someone else made and they gave it their all. The result is amazing. Such a clean design. All wires are hidden, it has two dimmer switches, and sturdy mounts that work on standard light stands.

The setup for this shot was pretty easy. I positioned Nick so that he was between two windows, about 8 feet from the wall. I knew that this would create a bluish (cold) background and frame his face. The next step was figuring out how close to have him stand to the light. After some experimentation, I had him pretty close to the bulbs so I could see the lights in his eyes very clearly, while not interfering with his pupils.

The most difficult part of this shot was getting the white balance just right. The warm light from the bulbs was hard to mix with the cold light from the windows. I spent about 30 minutes in Adobe Lightroom before settling on something that I liked.

Here are some shots of the setup:

nick setup 1

Nick setup 2

Nick setup 3

Permalink | September 23rd, 2007

6 Responses to “Nick’s headshot with a homemade ring light”

  1. Jesus Esquivel Says:
    December 21st, 2008 at 1:55 am

    You’ve inspired me to build one of these myself. Also, I hope ypu have considered using light bulbs at 5600k color temperature, might cut down on photoshop time, unless you were going go with a look that has a diffence in temperature combinations, in that case: way to go.

  2. Craig Says:
    January 1st, 2009 at 1:02 pm

    I’ll definitely try out some different temperature bulbs. I wasn’t necessarily going for the effect that I got with the mixed temps, but it looked cool and I consider it a happy accident.

    Let me know if you build one of these. I’d like to see how it turns out.

  3. Paul Baines Says:
    November 30th, 2010 at 5:09 pm

    Hi mate how long did it take you to make this?
    I’ve seen some of these made with little energy saving bulbs which dont burn as hot but seem to work.. Did you consider them? I so what made your overall choice?

    Love the shot and Well done!

    Regards (little photographer in Liverpool UK)

  4. Craig Says:
    November 30th, 2010 at 6:03 pm

    It didn’t take too long to make it. I think my dad and uncle worked on it for just a few hours at a time for a couple of days after some planning.

    I don’t use this light very often, so I haven’t tried different light bulbs, but I definitely will the next time I decide to use it. I hadn’t thought about newer bulbs being cooler and more comfortable to be in front of. Thanks for the tip!

  5. Keith Says:
    June 6th, 2011 at 6:50 pm

    Hey this is really cool. Just wondered what the 2 dimmers do? can half be dimmed while other half of ring is full power?

  6. Craig Says:
    June 6th, 2011 at 8:00 pm

    The dimmers are set up to control every other bulb. That way I can still get even light at really low power, using only 5 bulbs.

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