You are listening to take it personally, a podcast for photographers about the personal side of business and the art of standing out. Here. I'll help you build a business and a brand that is uniquely you if you want to attract dream clients and stop looking at the competition to decide your next move. If you are ready to show up as a confident branding authority to help you serve your clients and consider your goals and priorities too. If you want to make your mark in a new, underserved niche of photography, then this is the place for you. I'm your host, Maddie Ashong, South Dakota brand photographer and educator. I'm a straight shooting Instagram obsessed. Diehard Swifty who has built a multi-six figure business on the back of brand photography all while raising a family, and I know you can do the same. Let's get ready to take it personally. I used to panic every time that I walked into a dimly lit location for a brand session. I would pray for big windows and white walls, and the thought of having to bring a flash to a session would just break me out into an instant sweat. But now I welcome those tricky lighting situations. Honestly, I genuinely mean that because I have a system and because it just presents a new creative challenge for me to figure out. I work with a lot of photographers who are absolutely terrified at the idea of bringing in any sort of artificial light. They want to shoot in natural light only, and it's to the point where. If there's like a cloudy day or a rainy day, or it's a not ideal lighting situation, they will either cancel the shoot or not book the shoot because they are so afraid of having any sort of lighting set up. If that's you, I want this episode to be a step in the direction of you not doing that, of you feeling empowered with your lighting equipment. So I'm gonna walk through some of my favorite tools and favorite light setups. For brand photography sessions and when to use them. But I first want to caveat this with, I was definitely the photographer who. Watched all of the YouTube videos and like tried to consume all of the information about how to use flash indoors, how to use strobe indoors, what's the difference between flash and strobe and like continuous light and consistent light. Like what is the difference? What's going on? What am I doing? And it wasn't until I. Honestly, got up the nerve to just get a flash in my hand and practice and try new things and actually use the tools that it started to click. And I see this mistake really often in my programs too, of photographers who like have a million questions but aren't doing the work. And I don't say that there's no shade because that was exactly what I was doing. I thought I was doing the work, right? Like I thought that I was researching. But the reality is lighting is just one of those things that gets easier the more that you do it and the more that you actually practice it and you see how it can be manipulated and how it can be used and the modifiers that you can use, like all of that gets easier as you practice. And so if you have the opportunity to just like. Grab the lighting equipment that you do have, bring it to your home, bring it to a friend's business, see if someone will do a model shoot for you. That's exactly what I recommend doing. It's really scary, but it's a really big confidence builder. So a little bit of a tangent there, but I just, I want to caveat with that because I remember I just felt like I was spinning my wheels and not really learning anything. And then once I started actually practicing myself. It got so much easier and my students are finding the same thing to be true. We actually have a retreat coming up in the next couple of weeks for Rebrands and we're doing a lighting lab as part of the retreat, and I'm really excited about that because it'll just be so helpful to like all be in the same room as we are learning different like lighting capabilities. Like during an actual brand shoot. So if you have that opportunity to either do it yourself and just play around or attend some sort of an in-person workshop, that's really what I recommend. That's also one of the reasons that I am always telling people about my course behind the Shot, because even though it is online, I walk you through the lighting that I'm setting up at an actual brand session where there is no available light, and then at some other brand sessions where I have a little available light that is the next best thing to being in person with someone or holding a flash in your hand, ideally. You could watch the video while you're playing with your own lighting equipment, but if it's not feasible for you to be in the room with a mentor, learning this in a hands-on way behind the shot is honestly your next best bet. And it is now $150 off. So if you go to maddie peon.com/behind the shot and enter the code. Summer 25, you can take $150 off behind the shot. This is a very exciting time to join because I'm gonna be doing a live sprint in August. So typically behind the shot is on your own pace. You can do it whenever you have the time to do it. That's still the case. However, I understand what it's like to have courses just sitting in a bit of a course graveyard sometimes that. Accountability is really nice. And over a two week period in August, we're gonna have three live calls on different days. So hopefully there will be a time that works for you. You can attend these calls live or you can catch the replay and you can ask any questions that you might have about your lighting setup at a brand session, putting together a brand session, what that planning looks. You're also gonna get access to a new module and new education all about pricing because that is a topic that has come up quite a bit in behind the shot. Typically. That's something that we talk a lot about inside of rebrand, but I am bringing it into behind the shot during this sale. And that's gonna happen in August. The sale is happening now, but that will drop in August. So now is such a good time. To join behind the shot, not just for more lighting information, but for extra accountability with going through the course for extra help and assistance when it comes to pricing. It's just the perfect time to buy. So maddie phan.com/behind the shot. Enter the code summer 25 to get $150 off. All right, let's dive into lighting. People will often ask me to be a brand photographer. Do I need to have a studio? And my answer is always no. You definitely do not. There are plenty of situations where my studio has definitely come in handy. I'm not gonna lie, but I stand by the fact that some of my favorite sessions take place on location. I love the like real life element that shooting on location brings, I love the textures, I love the colors. I honestly love the I honestly love the challenge that comes with shooting on location, especially from a lighting perspective. So you certainly do not need a studio because the reality is that brand sessions take place in real life, uncontrolled environments. They don't always take place in studios, and the lighting is often going to be unpredictable. Oftentimes photographers rely too heavily on natural light and they don't know what to do when it's bad or inconsistent, or when it's just gone, right? Like you've taken too long to set up the shot, or all of a sudden there's a bunch of clouds and your natural light is gone and your mids shoot and your client has hair and makeup and oh, makes me like nervous just thinking about it. And so you really have to understand how to use the light that you have, and then also how to modify what you need to create. There were a lot of years that I got very lucky with light, and there are still times when that's the case when I'm experimenting and trying new things. But for the most part now I have a really solid understanding of how to use light at a brand session, whether that light already exists or whether I have to manufacture it. So here are my go-to lighting setups on a typical shoot. Number one is gonna be natural light only. Ironically, I probably use this the least often to be honest with you, which is crazy 'cause it didn't use to be the case. But it is very rare that I am not using. Some form of light on a brand shoot. Now, natural light only can be your best friend when it's golden hour, and that matters to the shoot. If you have a shoot that's taking place outside at Sunset, like golden hour is gonna be your bestie. If you have really big windows, if you have very clean white spaces, like it's gonna be your best friend. It is not your bestie. When you have overhead lighting, when you have midday sun, depending on your style of shooting. I think midday sun can be really fun and vibey, but it just depends on a lot of factors or like when you're back lit. So even if you are in a really great. Studio. If your windows are only facing a certain direction, or if you're in a home and your windows are only facing a certain direction and suddenly your client is back lit in all the shots that you want to get, that's not going to go very well either. So you can use a reflector to fill in shadows. I use a different method to fill in shadows. We're gonna talk about that in a second. You can also face your client toward the light source. Obviously that is certainly an option. But. At the end of the day, you're probably going to get some inconsistent results from shooting with purely natural light. I think of how different the light looks in my studio and my studio has giant windows on three walls. Like we have windows that face every way, but north and even still. The light temperature changes throughout the day. The light, the strength of the light changes throughout the day. The shadows change throughout the day, like there's so much variation in a day, and if you're trying to get consistent light throughout an entire shoot, like that's gonna be really challenging. So natural light only can be really challenging. The second form of lighting that I use is actually my favorite, and this is what I consider modified natural light. So you're mostly using natural light. You are modifying it in my case with flash. I see a lot of photographers who will use like LED panels for fill or like even using a reflector, using scrims to diffuse like harsh light from a window or from the sun. Those are all options here. I don't know if you can totally consider this to be modified natural light when the light source that I'm bringing in is artificial, but we're just gonna go with it because I definitely, if I'm going to use modified natural light, I do need natural light. However, I don't need it to be super consistent. If it's cloudy, one minute and sunny the next, that's okay. If there are parts of the studio that are a little bit more shadowy than other parts of the studio or wherever I'm shooting, that's also okay. And the reason for that is because I have a flash on my camera that is filling in those shadows. I shoot with the pro photo a 10. It is my favorite thing ever. It was like, flash didn't make sense until I had a pro photo a 10. But that is literally the truth. It just makes flash so easy. I'm obsessed with it. I have a ProPhoto system. So I have a few other ProPhoto items that I will talk about in a little bit. It is more expensive, it just is. But it's really consistent. I like the way it works. It's so simple to use if ProPhoto is not in your budget. I do have quite a few clients who really like the God. System. But I've not used it, so I can't speak to it, but I do have clients who have really liked it. So this is my preferred method at brand sessions because it allows me to be a little bit more run and gun than having a big light system that I need to set up. I literally just have a flash on my camera. It's very simple. If I wanted to, I could also put a trigger on my camera and put my flash like across the room. But typically if I'm gonna start messing with that, I'm pulling in bigger guns. So usually if I am using my flash, it's just on my camera. And the difference between using a flash on your camera and not using a flash on your camera when you're already shooting in natural light. Is subtle but significant. That's the best way I can describe it. It just fills in their face a little bit better. It fills in shadows a little bit better. It makes the light more consistent. So if you have quite a bit of like natural light fall off in your photo where like the background looks really dark or one side of the image that's furthest from the natural light source looks really dark, your flash is gonna be able to help with that by just filling in those shadows. Typically I'm pointing my flash up toward the ceiling. However, at my studio, my ceilings are really tall and they are technically gray, so that doesn't do me a lot of good. So I actually have a diffuser that comes with the ProPhoto, a 10 on top of my camera that's on my camera, like literally or on my flash every time that I'm shooting. So I'm not technically bouncing, I'm using a diffuser. Again, this is my favorite setup. It is so simple. And I will have, actually, I had a shoot the other day. I had really ideal lighting situation at my studio. I had a client that was very comfortable in front of the camera, like it was just an ideal scenario and I was like, maybe I don't need to use the flash on my camera. And so I took it off for a couple shots and I'm like, I just don't like it as much. I just like the control that I have more when I have the flash on my camera. I like how the lighting just looks more consistent. This is my preferred method for sure. And then the last light set up that I will use at a brand session is purely artificial light. This is when I am busting out the big guns of flash and strobes. So I am probably using my pro photo a 10, but I'm also probably using my pro photo B 10. This is just a bigger light. I think it's considered a strobe. I always call it a strobe. But it honestly doesn't look a whole lot different from a flash. Like it's not huge. Some strobes are so large. One of the nice things about the pro photo system is that it's quite compact, so that's the B 10. It sinks to the A 10, so I will often have each of them on their own separate tripod, and they are talking to each other and firing when the trigger on my camera tells them to fire, which is whenever I hit my shutter. So it's very simple. The light temperatures match, it's great. I will typically use my B 10 with either an umbrella or a soft box. I have an 84 inch PLM, which is a big umbrella. It's technically, I think a shoot through umbrella, but I have a diffuser sock on it. So I am using it to bounce into, oh, that's a lie. I used to have a shoot through umbrella. I had issues with color cast. I do not use a shoot through umbrella anymore. I use an umbrella where the inside is reflective, and so my light is going into the umbrella, bouncing out through the diffuser, and it's honestly acting like a really big soft box, but it's easier to transport. I like a soft box, but I don't like breaking them down more on that in a second. So most often my B 10 has that big umbrella on it. That's an 84 inch. I also have, I think, a three foot soft box that I can use also, but it's like hard to break down and so it's just easier to bring my umbrella. And the bigger the light source, the softer the light, I tend to like really. Soft, even lighting, and so that's just my preference. I recently purchased a click soft box. This is another part of the pro photo line. It is. So cool. It's part of the click system, so if you have any pro photo gear, you know that it's magnetic, so you can attach things to the light, like the diffuser that I was talking about. And in this case you can also attach like your flash to a soft box without any extra gear. It just like literally snaps in and then the click soft box. Also, the click soft box is collapsible. And so you I don't know how to say this without showing you, and this is a podcast, but you basically just can open it up and break it down with a literal click of a button so it breaks down and is easier to store and transport. So at a recent shoot, I used my 84 inch PLM on. My B 10 and my two foot soft box on my flash. So kind of mixing light sources. I was curious how that was gonna go. Because I'm using an umbrella and a soft box, but it was what I had and I absolutely loved the results. In an ideal world, I probably would've used a third light, which would've been my second flash, but that is currently getting repaired right now. For a little bit of like back lighting. But it was totally fine without it. So that was a really great system that I used recently. And just proves that to an extent, you can use what you've got a lot of the time when it comes to lighting, I know it can feel really overwhelming to oh, do I have to buy all this new stuff? And like at some point possibly, gear is definitely a cost to consider, but I was very pleased that I could use my. Umbrella and my strobe with my flash and my soft box and the lighting looked great. So when I am doing headshots, I'm typically using all artificial light, even if there's natural light there. Again, it's just not consistent enough. I have had headshot before where the sun goes behind a cloud or all of a sudden it's raining, or the color temperature of the light is just a little bit different. And it's not the vibe when you're delivering 50 headshots that you want to look very similar. It's just so much easier to bring in artificial light. And so I'm doing that with headshots and I'm also doing that if I have a situation where I just, where I have no available natural light. And again, this is something that I walk through inside, behind the shot. I take you into a very small room. It's eight by 10 or something like that. And there is absolutely no natural light. And I show you how I would light it with my flash, with my strobe, and with a combination of the two. So it can absolutely be done and be done in a way where your clients are pleased with the final images. At the end of the day, lighting isn't just technical. I know that's the part that can trip up a lot of people and many photographers get stuck there, but lighting is part of your brand. Being able to provide that reliable, clean, consistent lighting, it makes your portfolio cohesive. Even if. You're shooting in different locations. Even if you know there are other things that are changing as there's, as there will be you having consistent lighting in your portfolio makes it all look like it belongs to you. It also helps you charge more because clients can trust the results they trust. That you know what you're doing and when you show up, you're gonna be able to execute. No matter what the lighting conditions look like, you're gonna be able to book more because you're not limited to like ideal locations or times of the day. You're going to feel more confident when you have projects come in that are taking place at a location that you might not be totally in love with, you can still do a good job. Behind the shot shows you exactly how to light brand sessions and how I have done it. You get to follow me along on four different brand session days and see how I use natural light, how I use artificial light, how I use my flash, my strobe, how I light a room that has absolutely no natural light. You get to follow me along and be a fly on the wall during all of those shoots. And when you join right now, you get $150 off with the code Summer 25, and you can also join us for our August summer sprint where we're going to have live calls where you can come and get all of your questions answered. And lastly, you also get access to a brand new module on pricing that is dropping in August. So now is the best time to join behind the Shot. I'm really excited about these next couple of weeks and to, connect with those of you who are going to join us and give you a little bit of added accountability. To go through the course, and if you have joined behind the shot in the past and you're looking for a refresh, or maybe you haven't gotten through the course yet, you can also come in to this summer sprint, and I would absolutely love to see you there. So for more information on that and to join us, you can go to maddie ashong.com/behind the shot and enter the code Summer 25 for $150 off and to join us in our summer sprint. See you there. Thank you so much for listening to take it personally. If you haven't already, would you head over to iTunes and leave us a review? This is the best way to let other photographers know about the show and help keep us creating content you crave. And if you want more tips and tools to build your personal photography brand, head over to my website, maddie pong.com. Here you can access my downloadable ultimate personal brand session shot list to get your clients singing your praises and browse my blog for more trade secrets to help you hone your craft and grow your business. Love to learn while you listen. Visit maddie peon.com and click on podcast for all things. Take it personally. From show notes to recent episodes and incredible guest profiles, remember friend, the most important part of any brand is the people behind it. Branding and business is personal, so let's take it personally.