[Chris Saper]

Hi, Renee,

As I do not use artificial lighting when photographing my subjects, I can't offer much in regard to lighting systems. However, when you do use natural daylight, here are a few tips:

1. Time of day: try to match your film's Kelvin temperature (light's color temperature) as closely as possible to your film. Regular daylight film is most accurate when daylight temperature is matched, typically about 10-11 am and 1-2 pm. Direct sulight earlier and later is redder in color, and gives a red-orange cast to your photos. You can use blue filters to help compensate; in any case you will still have to compensate for the color distortion when you mix color. (Interior incandescent lights give the same distortion.) The upside is that you can get beautiful light and shadow patterns when the sun is lower in the sky.

Artificial light systems should not present the same color distortions.

2. Shadow problems: it's the nature of negatives and prints to comress shadows and make them darker than they should be as well as devoid of color. This is just an inherent problem with photos..you can compensate a bit when you shoot the film, by adding fill light. You can find collapsable fabric reflectors (similar to the collapsable windshield shades for cars) on small portable supports that will bounce a small amount (you do not want your filled in light to compete with your primary light source). I have had good luck with B&H photovideo in New York for photo equipment and supplies.

For the sake of simplicity a piece of white foam board, 24" X 30", is all I've ever needed; just postion it on the ground opposite the light source, angled so it bounces light back onto the subject's shadows.

I have been interested to read of photo systems used by other painters, and perhaps might try them out at some future point. As of now, simpler seems to work fine for me.

Good luck!