Life in the Slow Lane

One of my readers asked if I would do a post on the wall of lights. How I set it all up.  It’s actually pretty easy!

I use my portable studio backdrop stands to create this.  I have the stand at 6 feet tall and I try to get the lights almost to the ground so I used a lot of those lights.  Like 900 lights or 3 strands of 300 lights. I like the full effect of bokeh that it creates, but I’ve also seen it with less lights and that is neat too. I really don’t think you can go wrong with how many lights you chose to do. These pictures were all taken with my point and shoot. I don’t have a wide angle lens and not enough room to get far enough back to take in the whole scene.

The lights are as close to the wall as I can possible get it. Then about 15 feet infront of the lights I set a chair for the client.

Set the client down on the chair/stool. I have to say this client is a pain in the butt.  Just won’t sit still! 😉

With the sun coming in the windows from behind the subject I have the mom hold a white foam board (walmart $2.50) infront of the subjcet to reflect the light. Have to get those catch lights in the eyes!!

Then I get really close to the client and take pictures. I get about 3 feet or so all I see in my camera is the lights in the background.  Remember this is my point & shoot so there is no bokeh with this camera.

You’ll notice the green wires don’t show up.

My camera settings for this were:

Lens: 50mm f/1.8

Shutter speed: 1/160 sec (you don’t want to go below 1/50)

ISO: 200

Mode: Aperture Priority (the tutorial I read about this suggested AP mode so that’s why I used it)

No Flash!

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I had this great idea to have set up a Christmas scene and a wall of lights in my house for pictures.  Remember I don’t have a studio so my living room becomes the studio.  95% of the time my house is orderly.  It’s always clean, but sometimes junk piles up on the table by the door, or mail gets thrown on the counter for a few days, but for the most part my house is de-cluttered. So I’m sure you can imagine how having my living room turned upside down for these sessions has distributed my life.

I have taken everything of the walls, most everything has been moved to the left side of the room. And add in all the lighting & Christmas stuff I have a mess!

I’m lucky to have a good sized room with good natural light (during the day, these were taken last night) to be able to set this up, but it sure throws my “I have to have a tidy house” OCD into high gear! That jumble of lights under the hanging Christmas balls is my wall of lights.  It’s pretty heavy so I lay it on the floor so my portable backdrop stand doesn’t permanently bow.

Those Christmas ornaments hanging from the ceiling. Molly thought they were her own personal playground.

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