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Get Creative With
Your Lighting
words and photos by Dray van Beeck
Selective lighting can give a great new
atmosphere to your photos. The easiest way
is to use your torch to light a subject. This
will give the subject light while the rest stays
darker and has less colour.
The help of your buddy could make the
photography easier. If your buddy holds the
torch and shines it on the subject, you can
position the camera and have a more hands
free approach.
Sometimes it’s possible to position your torch
behind a subject and lighting it this way from
the back. A fan coral or feather stars are quite
suitable for these kinds of photos.
Another possibility is using one of your
strobes to backlight a subject. Either you use
the strobe in slave mode or attached to your
camera. Experiment with the right angle, right
position and amount of strobe light.
The new rage from 2010 was the reinvention
of a studio technique from more than 50 years
ago - the “snoot”. Portrait photographers in
the forties and fifties used a cone shaped
appendix over the lamps/strobes to create a
darker area around the face. This technique
can be used underwater to highlight a subject
without the area around it - (of course you
can also do this afterwards in editing software
such as Adobe Photoshop).
A snoot, a cone you attach to your strobe,
can be bought or self-made. The size of the
opening dictates how much of your photo is
illuminated.
Left: A torch was used to backlight this soft coral and
bring out the detail in the stems
Above: The anemonefish was highlighted by a dive
torch to make it stand out from the background
PHOTOGRAPHY FOCUS
Making a snoot is easy. Take a plastic bottle,
cut away the bottom half and paint it black.
Find a way to attach it to your strobe and you
are ready to go. Keep the cap and make a
small hole in it. For macro photography this
can give a neat small light area.
Modern snoots that are available from
good camera retailers, come with all the
accessories you need.
Snoots work very well if you use the spotting
light of your strobe. This way you can see
where it focuses and where the snoot will
Above (clockwise from top left): An example of a homemade
snoot, a shop bought snoot with accessories, the snoot fitted on the
strobe for wide angle lighting, a lionfish illuminated by the spotlight
appears to be performing on stage, a tube sponge top lit by a snoot
aim the light. The easiest “snooting” is with
wide-angle photography. Macro requires a
lot of patience and positioning. It can be a
good idea to use a tripod to offer even greater
control.
More tips and advice
can be found in this
new guide. Available
as an app for both
iPhone and iPad.
Click here for details
THE EQUALIZER Sep-Oct 2011