When I began my career as a photographer in 1998, I started with studio strobes and two small umbrellas as light shapers. I mostly used them for environmental portraits on location. One umbrella provided ambient light in the room, and the other illuminated the subject’s face. This simple setup marked the beginning of my journey as a photographer and lighting specialist. Even now, after 25 years, umbrellas remain a staple in my daily work.
In this article I’ll show you how I work with umbrellas. I’ll share images and insights from a recent test, and I’m convinced that these three shoots will give you fresh ideas on how to use umbrellas in your photography for years to come.
Umbrellas come in two basic types – a standard shallow umbrella and a deep one, often called a deep umbrella. Elinchrom’s shallow umbrellas are superb light shapers for creating soft, diffused light with wide coverage. An ideal tool that’s quick to set up and works great even for group shots.Deep umbrellas give more focused lighting with high contrast, making them perfect for beauty and fashion portraits.
Both umbrella types are available in three variations: translucent, white, and silver.
In the first image of this series, I used the Elinchrom Deep Umbrella Translucent with a black backing panel lined with silver. This umbrella acts as a diffuser—light passes through it, while the black backing prevents backward light bounce, avoiding unwanted reflections from surrounding surfaces.
When light bounces off walls and other elements in the environment, these surfaces can add color casts to your subject, so controlling your light is essential when shooting. The light from a Deep Umbrella with a backing panel mimics that of a softbox. You’ll notice that the transition between shadows and mid-tones is very subtle, and the background appears lighter compared to the other options in this test.
In the second image, I used a Deep Umbrella White. In this setup, the umbrella is used to reflect light, with the strobe aimed away from the subject, resulting in fewer specular highlights, a bit more warmth, and a darker background.
For the third shot, I created an indirect softbox effect by fitting a translucent diffuser onto the deep white umbrella. This added a touch more warmth—about 200 K—further reduced reflections, and smoothed the transitions between light and shadow.
In the fourth test, I used a Deep Silver Umbrella, which delivers sharper light than the translucent version. With increased contrast, you get more specularity and texture, while the background becomes darker, creating a tighter focus.
Finally, we tested the Deep Silver Umbrella with the translucent diffuser. The light retained the same specular quality and detail as the white umbrella with diffuser, but kept the higher contrast provided by the silver umbrella.
This lighting was created in one of my workshops where a participant wanted to recreate a portrait that looked like it was lit by a column of light. Inspired by his vision, I refined the look and shot this portrait of my photography colleague Jerry Stevens. I can’t take credit for his flawless retouching, however.
I lit this image using only one light modifier: the Elinchrom Deep Silver Umbrella. I placed the light about 1.8–2.4 m to the right of the subject, with the umbrella’s lower edge at chin height. Then I flagged the light emerging from the umbrella with a V‑flat and a 50×75 cm flag positioned to overlap the front edge of the V‑flat at chin level, creating an “L”-shaped flag that restricted light to just the front of Jerry’s face. He accentuated the effect by leaning into the blocked area.
The main part of the V‑flat blocked light from hitting the background. Without it, the background would have been brighter than his face.I added a white reflector to the right of the subject for fill light. Placed close but not too close, it bounced back just enough light to lift the shadows. Figuring out V‑flat and reflector placement is pretty straightforward if you’re in a dark environment using just your strobe for light.
One thing I really love about teaching photography and running workshops is when participants bring example images and we create something inspired by them! For this lighting setup, we used an Elinchrom 105 cm Deep White Umbrella to give the shot a more focused light for this somewhat gritty image. After participants styled the model’s hair, applied generous amounts of earth, and painted on ketchup, we created this profile portrait with a bit of “Game of Thrones” flair.
With the light source placed above and behind the model, the light passed through layers of smoke created by a fog machine. We finished the image by pulling the white balance down to 4800 K.
A third way to use your umbrellas is to light the background. When you place a light on each side of the background combined with umbrellas, you’ll get much more even lighting compared to using standard reflectors. However, I wouldn’t recommend using the translucent umbrella for this task, as the light will spread everywhere and likely hit your subject. Instead, choose white or silver umbrellas and position them so that the subject can’t see the inside of the umbrella. Alternatively, you can light your background and create a subtle rim light by angling the umbrellas so the subject sees just a glimpse of the umbrella’s interior.
In this article, I’ve covered the most common ways I use umbrellas in my photography – it’s simple, effective, and produces great results. That’s what these light shapers are all about.
Imagine having a lighting kit with two Elinchrom THREEs and a stand bag with two stands plus two umbrellas with translucent diffusers. With this super‑compact setup you’ll be almost able to light any photo assignment. Everything from wedding shoots and corporate portraits to food images and editorial shoots. You can be ready in minutes and work in any environment, indoors or out. The only thing holding you back from your next adventure is your imagination!
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About John Gress:
For over 20 years, Chicago-based photographer John Gress has created stunning photos and videos for some of the US’s biggest brands and international media. His work includes advertising, portrait, and beauty-industry videos, as well as action photography of professional athletes. Professional Photographer Magazine calls Gress “one of the country’s top lighting experts.”