Mastering Strobe Positioning Techniques for Stunning Underwater Photography

Once we have bought our strobes and learned the basics of strobe positioning, it’s tempting to settle into a comfortable rhythm with our photography. Basking in the praise from friends and family for our exceptional photos, we may become complacent. This is an easy trap to fall into and one I see many people do, because when you have some light on the subject, the photos look great in comparison to the majority of underwater shots taken solely with ambient light.

However, to truly excel in underwater photography, we must venture into creative lighting. Once you begin this journey, the sky is the limit, and the options are endless. In this article, we will discuss the most useful strobe positions that you can use, the benefits of them for your photography, and explain in what instances you should use these techniques.

Recently, I conducted an underwater photography macro workshop to a group of people who were keen to learn new techniques. One important aspect of teaching this course was to get people to realize that we should stop merely taking underwater photos and start making them. This can be achieved through both settings and creative lighting. The strobes we have chosen to buy will be used in almost every underwater photo we take, so it’s great to understand how to utilize them for individual shooting situations.

Wide Angle Lighting: “Rabbit Ears”

Many years ago, I was lucky enough to join Dr. Alex Mustard on one of his wide angle lighting workshops. This was the first time I was really introduced to more unusual lighting techniques. One of the most useful and easiest to learn was "Rabbit Ears" and its variant, the semi-rabbit ears.

Many of the subjects we light are close to the sea bed. Traditional strobe positions risk illuminating the bright sand of the sea floor, resulting in distracting highlights. To counter this, we use the semi-rabbit ears strobe position. This involves lifting our strobes directly upwards from the 9 and 3 o’clock position, meaning most of the light is on the top half of the frame.

Imagine you are at Tiger Beach, kneeling in the sand, and the sharks are generally around 3-6 ft from your dome. If we don’t lift the strobes up, then we are more than likely going to throw light onto the sea bed and not onto the shark. We are lighting the entire 3-6ft area with the strongest part of the light and failing to light our subject. Lifting our strobes will resolve this issue.

For scenes requiring forward illumination, full rabbit ears position means that we have our strobes at 11 and 1 o’clock, but with our strobe arms extended all the way up, resulting in the strobes being directly above our heads and the strobes pointed just slightly downward. This technique effectively throws light forward without illuminating the space between the camera and subject, ideal for flat scenes or scenes that have more distance from the front to the back of the frame.

Wide Angle Lighting: Inward Lighting

Inward lighting for wide angle scenes demands finesse but yields powerful results. The best lighting is the lighting you can’t see. Inward lighting can be very delicate, and it’s all about controlling the beam and exactly where it falls. This can lead to very impactful scenes with lighting that looks very natural in the frame.

This technique shines when selectively lighting a subject while leaving the background untouched. Imagine a lionfish sitting next to a sponge. The idea here would be to use inward lighting to only allow the light to fall on the lionfish, and not on the sponge behind, allowing us to separate the two with lighting.

In order to use inward lighting, we position our strobes out nice and wide on the left and right, then have them in front of the dome. We then aim the strobes back at each other. The aim here is to catch the subject with the edge of the beam and for no extraneous light to go behind the subject. In order to do this, we set up the shot, and then we take a test. If you see light on the wall or background, then we move the strobes so they are pointing more towards the camera. We continue to angle the strobes inward until light falls on the subject and not on the background. This is quite a harsh lighting technique. We are not looking to have a nice soft edge to the beam as we usually do in wide-angle lighting. The harder the edge of the beam, the easier it is to know where it ends. Therefore, it is good to remove diffusers from your strobes and also to use any type of beam restrictor to help create the hard edge.

Marco Lighting: Inward Lighting

In macro photography, the backgrounds our subjects are placed on are often unsightly, with mud, muck, and even rubbish. So, it’s often desirable to separate the subject and create a black background. By using settings of 1/250 shutter speed and F16 or more, we can block out all ambient light, creating fully black exposures if we don’t use any artificial light. Once we have the camera set up in this way, inward lighting can be a very powerful tool.

The technique for inward lighting in macro is the same as for wide angle, but the scene we are lighting here is much smaller, so we need to ensure we control the light even better. Beam restrictors can be very useful for this, and in our next article in the series, we will discuss accessories for modifying strobe light as these are particularly useful in macro photography.

In essence, this technique requires that we have each strobe on wider arms to the left and right of our macro port and then aim them back towards the camera. Once again, we test to see where the light is falling, then change the strobes to point more towards the camera if we find the light is still hitting the background.

Macro Lighting: Throwing Them Forward

When we are shooting with a macro lens, some subjects can be a little skittish and not likely to get too close to the camera. On land, in order to get around this, we would just use a longer lens, moving from, say, a 100mm macro up to a 200mm macro and be a little further away while still getting the same shot. Underwater, though, this would cause us quite a few problems, especially with the lighting.

Imagine you are in the Caribbean and trying to shoot a jawfish with eggs. These critters usually hide in the sand, and as long as you remain 3-6ft away, they periodically pop up out of the sand to inspect the area. As soon as you try to edge a little closer, they become scared and go back into hiding, so you need to maintain a distance.

While shooting the jawfish at a distance of 3-6ft of water also means that your strobes are also lighting all 3-6ft of that water before they even reach the subject. This creates shots with little light on the subject and well-illuminated water, causing us to be able to see all backscatter and particulates. The way to negate this is to throw your strobes forward on long arms. They can be around 2ft ahead of the macro port and raised a little bit so we don’t throw light onto the sand. By doing this, we are significantly reducing the light that illuminates the water column and we also dramatically increase the light that reaches the subject.

One example where this technique comes in handy is when shooting subjects on a blackwater dive with a modern mirrorless camera that doesn’t have a 60mm macro option. In this case, you are generally further away from the subject than is most desirable. I find this lighting solution to be very useful in preventing too much backscatter in the dark parts of your blackwater images. It is also a great way to be able to get more light on the subject at lower strobe powers and give you faster recycle times for this high action shooting situation.

Backlighting

Backlighting is probably the most difficult macro lighting to master; however, it is well worth the effort and can create striking visual contrasts. It works well on macro subjects where we are trying to separate them from the background and also where we are trying to highlight details such as hairs on a hairy frogfish.

Backlighting differs from other techniques here, serving as supplemental lighting. While it's great for creating silhouettes, its true power shines when paired with front lighting. Typically, the front strobe is set to a lower power level for a subtler effect. Combining these two techniques produces compelling results.

In order to use your strobe in backlighting, it’s important you have a long enough arm to be able to get the strobe around the back of the subject. You would use one strobe behind the subject pointed back at the camera, but it needs to be done so that the face of the strobe is either out of the frame or directly behind the subject in order to completely hide the face. If you don’t do this, you will end up with blown out highlights in the frame anywhere the camera can see the strobe face. Your second strobe can be aimed at the subject on a slightly lower power and used to get some color on the front side of the subject. However, this is where the creativity comes in and making fine tuned adjustments is where you can really begin to create extraordinary images.

Conclusion

In conclusion, mastering the art of underwater photography lighting is a journey that requires dedication, experimentation, and creativity. By understanding and implementing various strobe positions and lighting techniques, photographers can elevate their images from merely capturing moments to creating captivating visual narratives. Whether it's wide-angle lighting techniques like "Rabbit Ears" or "Inward Lighting" for macro shots, each method offers unique opportunities to control light and composition, ultimately leading to more impactful and visually stunning photographs. With practice and patience, photographers can unlock the full potential of their underwater photography, capturing the beauty of the underwater world in all its splendor.