Practice your lighting techniques with Platyball, Platypod and Accessories

Words by Eryka Bagwell

How can you use a wooden model to set up your lighting? Well, allow us to share what fellow photographer and Platypod connoisseur Eddie Tapp was able to achieve with this final image and his behind-the-scenes set up. Give it a try for yourself and let us know what your results are! 

You can accomplish the same look by roughly following the same steps that Eddie did (below) and you can apply it with a photograph of any Barbie type doll or toy action figure.

In this photo you can see that Eddie has a Platypod disc mounted on the lens collar ring and the camera on top of a Platyball Elite. (While for this setup, he has it held at a right angle, our team recommends to use it fully upright and rotate the collar ring to the portrait position.) Eddie added a translucent sweep under the model. Which, if you look closely, is being lit from below and behind by using two LumeCube 2.0 lights. One is mounted on a gooseneck and Platypod eXtreme and the other is clamped right onto the cross bar using a Platypod Mini Super Clamp as well as a Platypod gooseneck. The main light is a the LumeCube RGB panel pro mounted on a gooseneck and another Platypod eXtreme. His backlighting is a LumeCube 2.0 with a snoot. The hair light is provided by yet another LumeCube 2.0 mounted onto gooseneck and held onto the frame of the sweep of translucent material supported by the Platypod Elbow and Platypod Mini Super Clamps. The light is blocked from the camera to avoid any lens flare by using an opaque "gobo" disc held by more clamps and goosenecks. The main light is reflected back at the subject by a V-flat type reflector card.  Also notice that Eddie incorporated the brand new Benro Mach3 tripod in this shot as well.

One of the most interesting things about this set up is that Eddie can control all of his lights from a single app from Lumecube (free) on his smart phone… Amazing!

To view more of Eddie's work visit his website by clicking here and to purchase your Platypod products and stage a Toy photography shoot like Eddie's Wooden Model image above visit our website by clicking here.