Hedy Lamarr Inspired Beauty Shoot | 6 Light Setup

If you follow my work you already know how much I love the Ziegfeld Follies and pretty much everything from that era, which of course includes the iconic actress Hedy Lamarr. (Learn more about her here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_La....

Not only was Hedy a stunning performer, she also was a very talented inventor!

This empowering woman was the perfect inspiration for this shoot vintage style beauty shoot.

This image shown here was taken during my Timeless workshop with Chris Knight. In this workshop we take inspiration from various time periods such as old Hollywood and put our mix on them, bringing them to life for attendees to photograph. 👉 https://lindsayadler.photo/timeless

💡 Lighting

As you can see from the BTS this is a complicated setup with 6 lights total. I’ve mentioned before I rarely go into a photo shoot with multiple lights right off the bat. I always build up and problem solve as I go along.

The lighting started off simple here, but I soon realized I wasn’t getting the light needed to reflect the stars on the beautiful headpiece.

In order to solve this problem we built a light tent of sorts by placing rolls of diffusion paper around the model. This gave the stars something to reflect off of and now they would actually show up.

I now had to light the diffusion, which I used a Magnum reflector with grid and bare bulb with grid on the opposite side.

Next I used a bare bulb with 10 degree grid as a main light on the model's face.

So far we’re at 3 lights, but when I think of old Hollywood, rim lights definitely come to mind. So I added two 1x4ft strip softboxes.

Last but not least is a light on the background with an Optical Spot and searchlight gobo to cast a pattern on the background just for a bit more flair.

I also added a Lastolite Triflector to bounce any light back into the subject’s face in case they move around.

Adding a white mist filter gave the image the illusion of haze being in the scene, which is another iconic look for images from that era.

For post processing I increased the contrast, then clarity and popped the highlights as well as converted the image to black and white. I also added a film grain to look like old film.

Lastly, in Photoshop I cleaned up some of the background and stars to make things more symmetrical.

👇 Whew! That was a complicated breakdown for sure. Let me know what you think in the comments below!

⚙️ Camera Settings:
✅ 24-70mm
✅ 1/200th
✅ F/8
✅ ISO 400


📸 Gear:

✅ Canon EOS R5: https://prf.hn/l/7oZobqW/
✅ Canon RF 24-70mm: https://prf.hn/l/QLjXpjz/
✅ Profoto D2: (discontinued, linking to new D3): https://prf.hn/l/K9ENnmk/
✅ Profoto Magnum Reflector: https://prf.hn/l/KLd9e9L/
✅ Westcott Optical Spot: https://prf.hn/l/G9DRROp/
✅ Profoto 1x4' Strip Softbox: https://prf.hn/l/7gzpRAa/
✅ Profoto 10 Degree Grid: https://prf.hn/l/kVkP9q9/
✅ Tether Tools Tether cable: https://prf.hn/l/vwzRaoJ/
✅ Lastolite Triflector: https://prf.hn/l/7DlBokw/
✅ Savage Seamless Fashion Gray background: https://prf.hn/l/7gzpjPy/

🔥 If you're interested in more setups like this you'll definitely want to check out my Old Hollywood Lighting Recipe Guide with over 20+ lighting setups. http://lindsayadler.photo/oldhollywood

👉 Want to see this all unfold in person? I highly recommend checking out the Timeless workshop: https://lindsayadler.photo/timeless.

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