Using coloured gels

The Bloomberg Suite is a ‘state of the art’ computer suite for Economics students. Photographing people looking at computers is always a challenging prospect. However the Bloomberg software with its colourful graphs and statistics made a refreshing change from trying to make an excel document look sexy.

Part of my brief was to capture students using the Bloomberg data, I used off camera flash with colour gels on the models faces to suggest the glow from the monitor. I really enjoyed the challenge of capturing an exciting image from quite a mundane activity. The three pictures above are all very different and each have a different mood and atmosphere to them.

I always try out different lighting techniques as they give the image a different mood and atmosphere and thus help communicate or imply a certain feeling or narrative. The two pictures above show the same person, sitting in the same position, however they are very different due to the lighting set up. The picture on the left is lit by a combination of flash and the room lights. The picture on the right has a very different feel to it. The gelled lights on the subjects face become more prominent and the room takes on a different atmosphere lit solely by the monitors.