My aim here was to re-create a bright morning light and illuminate with it some food objects. Not very happy with the composition but the subject was hastily arranged to test the light, of which I am rather satisfied.
At my right I used a double-baffled softbox with neutral light (translucent internal reflector, powered at 1.0). At my left, behind the table, I used a beauty dish with a golden reflector (powered at 2.9).
Things to note:
- I did not get a soft light but, rather, something more similar to direct sunlight. In fact I used a reflector as main light. A softbox would yield a rather different mood.
- Typically food is lit with a backlight. My light was behind the subject, but not directly behind.
- The softbox that I used as a fill: I prefer keeping it rather low, in order to fill also those shadows that fall below the plate’s border, if visibile.
About the warm look that I wanted to achieve: I used a golden reflector inside the beauty dish, however that alone would not achieve the intended look. In fact, if I simply wanted everything tinted in yellow, I could have easily done this “in post”, digitally, by simply keying in a different overall colour temperature. However, my intention was to give a warm look to the main light only, exactly to simulate direct sun, that normally enters a room which also is illuminated, perhaps through other windows, by the sky and therefore with bluer/whiter light. This is why I kept the shadows cooler, using a fill-in softbox with neutrally coloured light.