So how did we light that portrait of Rachel?

As you saw in the "studio" shot, we were dealing with a pretty dull looking white wall and seriously ugly light. Weak incandescent bulbs in two places in the ceiling and a big window letting in far too much daylight. So first thing is we close the window shades and turn off the lights. Well, that is, after we completed our set up! Which consisted of just two flashes, a snoot, a reflector, a couple gels, and a house plant. (You get it now, don't you Rob?) Here's the first or main flash. Notice the amber gel on it. Now here it is again with the home made snoot in place. A snoot is simply a way to focus the light beam from wide to narrow. That way we can pick and choose what is lit... in this case Rachel's lovely visage. Here's our second or background flash. Notice the blue gel attached. Remember the blue background?

Remember also the dark patterns in the blue background? Well that's where the house plant comes in. You shoot the flash through the plants leaves, et voila! Cool, weird patterns on wall. And that's pretty much it! Except I sort of lied about only two flashes in use. There was actually a third. Here it is. The flash atop the camera put off just enough light to trigger the two other flashes, but not enough to add any light on our model. And here's the shot one more time: