Your Basic Lighting Kit: A Spin Around the Block
Abstract: A Guided Tour for your first steps with your new lighting kit. Okay, so the UPS guy has just dropped off your box of new lighting gear. What do you do with it? Where do you start? That is exactly the gap we explore in person whenever I teach a beginner's lighting class (with exactly this gear, by the way.) So today we are going to walk through a "first steps" exercise with your new gear. If you are reading ahead just to explore, fine. Just make sure you come back to this page when your kit arrives. Today we will be working with a standard JumpStarter kit. First we are going to put it together, then we are going to use it to make some simple, dramatic portraits. Assembling Your Lighting Kit Most of this is pretty obvious. But we are going to walk through it, step-by-step anyway. Just to be sure. You'll soon be doing it without a second thought. Open up your light stand and extend it until the top is about at eye level. We can adjust this height easily later, ...