Studio Assignment Portraiture Additional Light Source

The plan for the additional light source portrait was to use a plasma ball like the one below to look like an energy ball being controlled by the subject.

 The first attempt at shooting it was ideal. I had the whole studio to myself and could have it pitch black for the long exposure. The shots came out ok but not quite what I had in mind. 

Initial shoot with Matthew

I wanted to be able to see the bands of electricity more clearly and have more emphasis on the plasma ball.  To achieve this I switched to a wide angle lens (14-24mm) and got right up close to the ball with the subject looming over the top. The plasma ball had a sound setting which only set of the electricity when there was a sound or bump. Each time a sound went off the first bands of electricity would always shoot to the subjects fingers. So after some playing around I worked out that about 8 taps at ISO1600 gave a decent rendering of the bands before I could fire the flash to illuminate the subject.

I used two strip softboxs directly either side of the subject on a pretty low setting with a single flash head behind the subject for rim lighting. I wanted the side softboxes quite low to give some dark edgy shadows. Overall the shot came out pretty well and with some editing in PS I was happy with the result.