Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon Oso
Well, kind of.
Since the owner is also a metal fabricator I was also considering buying a bunch of different lights and having him build lighting mounts into the walls and also using the stands to move them around too. Bad idea, too much work? Or does this sound like a decent idea.
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It's definitely a bad idea to build fixed lights into the walls. The reason I say this has many factors. First of which, you need to be able to precisely control the lighting in relation to the model. You want to have flexibility when it comes to this.
I'll give you an example. Say you have a model sitting in the chair. Your lights built into the wall are setup perfectly for that. But now you need her on top of the desk. Hmm. Now you run into a problem, because not only do you have to change the output of the light, but you also have to deal with the change in direction of the light versus your subject. Having a light source fixed to your wall would make that an impossibly shitty situation.
The other factor is that in order to have precise control over light, you (generally speaking, of course) need to have light coming from a single point per light source. If you have a wall of light, it tends to muddy the directional quality of light and create a less flattering image. Photography tends to look more stunning when light sources create contrast.
The only thing that would really make sense, if you want to go in the direction of some sort of built-in setup without utilizing light stands, is to go with a ceiling mounted track system. You need to be able to move the lights around. BUT, your ceilings are not high enough for this type of setup. You'd be banging your head on that stuff, and it would be excessively permanent in a setup that wasn't really meant to be a studio (small rooms are not entirely flexible for a permanent setup).