Simon Ridgway Photography

I was commissioned to photograph some portraits of the Archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan at Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff. Llandaff Cathedral is a great location for portraits but, like most old buildings, its dark – really dark. Those lovely big stained glass windows don’t let in very much light so I needed to help them along a bit by bringing some of my own.

Here’s my favourite picture from the shoot.

All the natural light in this picture is coming from the stained glass window so I needed one light on camera left to light the subject, but I also need to boost the minimal light coming from behind. I placed another light on a stand directly behind the archbishop so that his body was hiding it from the camera position. This light is what is giving the rim of light around his head and also lighting up the floor behind him. Because this flash light is coming from the same direction as the big window light it all looks natural. In reality the light from the window was no where near bright enough to light all that floor area behind him.

Adding artificial light to a scene can be done without it looking too obvious, if the light appears to be coming from somewhere sensible – in this case the window.