A few months ago, Christian contacted me for some promotional photos for his upcoming iTunes single “Gloria, Honra, Y Poder” (listen here). He wanted something “moody” and urban. More an environmental shoot than a headshot. Using a couple of ProFoto B1’s, this is what I came up with.
We started with a simple headshot on a grey backdrop. A single light in a 5″ Octobox (camera right/high) and a white V-Flat (camera left) staged the simple shot below.
Next, I thought it would be cool to do a “production” shot that showed the lighting setup. I try to do a few of these on every shoot but on this shoot, they provided a cool shot of Christian as he was.
Below, you can see the setup as well. I used the Octobox as a background light to the camera right to that the wall was lit and it also provided a little fill on Christian as well. This was because the main light was a single B1 with a 10 degree grid. This put a very focused light on Christian’s face, leaving the rest of the image very dark. The large fill keep the image from becoming too dark.
The last shot we did was a three light setup. One (gridded) light as the main (camera left/high) and two side lights (bouncing off of v-flats, just behind Christian). It gave a smooth sidelight to contour him but didn’t light the front of his body. 
We took a few other shots form the shoot, but these were some of my favorites. Simply put, what lighting modifiers you use can drastically change the look of your images. Playing around with them a little is the best way to learn what you prefer.
