Perhaps one of the most overlooked photographic accessories is the humble reflector.  They are affordable, transportable and unlike nearly everything else associated with digital photography, they don’t cost an arm and a leg.  They are most commonly used on location to reflect sunlight onto a subject, but here I’ll show you how to effectively use one in a studio setting to achieve a really nice portrait.

This was taken last week in my studio and shows a fairly basic two light setup for portraits.  What you see on camera left, the black portion of the image, is a 5′ octabox, essentially a large softbox shaped in an octagon instead of a more traditional rectangle.  The second studio strobe isn’t shown in this photo, however it’s camera left and positioned about 12″ away from the paper backdrop, and just outside of the frame.  I put a 20 degree spot on it and hoisted it up to the top of the paper and aimed it to the bottom right corner, the light behind the model is evident.  This creates a soft diagonal from top left to bottom right, so the opposing corners fade darker.  Just something a little different.

The model is standing in what is called broad lighting, meaning I’m lighting the broad side of her face with the softbox.  This usually isn’t flattering for portraits, in this case it worked really well for the model with one exception.  The camera left side of her face was very dark and because of her shoulder position, her torso was dark too.  My options were to put another studio strobe in place with a light modifier, perhaps an umbrella, to try and fill in the shadows, but it would mess up the ratio’s of the studio strobes in place already. I in turn opted for a reflector to reflect the spilled light from the softbox back onto the model.  You’ll notice it’s gold, which also helps warm the light up and give a nice glow to the skin, and it’s held with a reflector holder on a studio light stand.  The stand is optional, but I didn’t have an assistant to hold the reflector for me.

In this final image it’s clear to see that the reflector filled in light to camera left, but not all of it.  There is enough difference between the right and left side of the model’s face to show some texture, but the overall lighting is still soft and warm. One of the other major benefits of using the reflector to camera left instead of a second fill strobe was spill light.  Spill light is anything that goes past the subject and ends up on the background.  More then likely a second strobe’s spill light would disrupt the background lighting I was after, forcing me to rethink my entire setup.

Reflectors are amazing tools, available in sizes varying from 12″ through 6′ and in a broad array of reflective colors, including white, silver, gold, silver / gold mix and black.  The size and color of your reflector will effect the outcome of your photo, so experiment with a few different ones.  Unlike buying a digital camera, you really don’t have to worry about upgrading reflectors anytime soon either, just adding to your collection.  The one used in this shoot has been in my camera bag for the last eight years or so now!