Hi,

Errrrrrrrr it was a couple of years ago now! As best I can remember, I used a single flash with reflector as the back light, at ceiling level, behind Tillie to produce the halo effect on her hair.

I turned off the lights which were usually pointed at the cove to burn it out, allowing shadows to fall where they liked.

Most of the fill actually came from the fact she was sitting in white infinity cove, but looking at the catch-lights in her eyes I also had one strip soft-box, intensity turned down to minimum, in front of her as well. This provided some fill but was mostly there to ensure her eyes didn’t go “dead”, which is a danger when relying on diffuse fill bouncing around the room.

As I often do, I deliberately courted light flare by shooting almost directly in to the back light, and taking off the lens hood. This often produces a lovely soft glow and some ghost images of the light. The Hasselblad lenses are very flare resistant, so the effect is subtle- as you’ll see from the “Hair-tied in her Master’s Study” set with Becky Perry recently you can run into trouble doing this with an older, crappier, dirtier lens like a twenty year old Canon 35 mm prime 🙂

Hope that helps!

Cheers, Hywel