I used a Godox AD200pro with an 80cm silver umbrella for this simple portrait of Helen.

Using one light encourages creative experimentation

When I’m working with one light, every small adjustment matters. Moving it slightly changes how the shadows fall, how highlights sculpt the face, and how the overall mood shifts. This encourages a deeper understanding of light shaping. You’ll find yourself experimenting more with positioning the light to the side for dramatic portraits or placing it high for a cinematic look. I used a lighting angle of 90° to the camera for 10 of the shots in this feature.

The pictures in this article are lit with a wide variety of light sources from the humble Speedlight right up to powerful monoblock flashes and with continuous lights too. There is so much you can do with just one light that I rarely use more.

Note: All of my flash and continuous lights use the same Bowens mount and all of the modifiers are interchangeable.

Here is some of the lighting equipment referred to in this article. Top Left: The Amaran 200x continuous light. I power this with either the mains unit supplied or with an Aputure twin battery unit and a pair of V-Lock batteries.  Top Middle: The Amaran 60x light, also powered with a single V-Lock battery or the mains unit supplied. Top Right: A set of Scattergels that I use with the barn doors below. They are not suitable for the AD400 as the shadows are a bit too weak because of the size of the flash tube. They do work well with the continuous lights and the Godox AD200, using the round head, Fresnel head or the bare bulb head. Bottom Left: The fabulous Godox AD200Pro kit. I’ve used these for over 10 years now, and they are superb. Middle Middle: The Godox S2 bracket allows the AD200 with any of the heads, or any Speedlight to work with any Bowens S type modifiers. Bottom Middle: The Godox AD400pro shown here without the flash tube. I use this light inside reflectors or small softboxes. Bottom Right: The Aputure Light Storm barn door set that fits all of the lights and lets me clip Scattergels to the front. Note the black reflector. Scattergels won’t work with barn doors attached to a silver reflector.

01. Top Left: I used a simple Speedlight on a coiled cable connected to the camera to light this shot of Mike. The Speedlight was bare-faced and directed at Mike from about 2m to the right of the camera. Top Right: I used a 400Ws flash head on a stand above the camera to light Carla on a sand dune in Fuerteventura. I fitted the flash unit with a high-efficiency spot reflector to get the power needed to counteract the sunlight. You can see the effect of the flash by observing the shadow under Carla’s chin. Bottom Left: I used 1200Ws of flash in a silver umbrella to light Victoria outside this country house in Gloucestershire, UK. The light fall-off created a lovely spotlight effect. Bottom Right: A single Speedlight on a stand that was remotely triggered was all I used to light this shot of Rosalinde in Brugge, Belgium.

02. Top Left: I used flash on camera to light this shot of Kate in Babington House, Somerset, UK. When there are flash specular reflections kicking back into the lens, it makes on-camera flash shots more exciting. Top Right: I used a Godox AD200 with a Scattergel rigged directly above the camera to light this shot of  Jolien in Ghent, Belgium. Bottom Left: I used a Speedlight with a small diffused reflector of about 100mm to light Carla in this hotel room in Munich, Germany. You can see the lovely sheen reflection created by the flash on the woodwork behind her. Bottom Right: This shot of Zara was lit with a Speedlight on the camera. I love to use on-camera flash for fashionable work when there are background surfaces like this leather sofa to reflect back the light.

03. Top Left: A continuous light with a Fresnel lens and Scattergel was used to illuminate Chloe Jasmine, creating crisp, hard-edged shadows. Don’t be afraid to embrace hard light—it’s used in most of these shots, and it works beautifully. After all, the majority of natural and artificial light sources, from sunlight to indoor fixtures, produce striking, well-defined shadows. Top Middle: A simple 40cm beauty dish with a grid on a studio flash head was all I used for this shot of  Chloe-Jasmine. Top Right: Iskra is standing in a corridor lit with a spotlight through an open door from a bedroom on the left. Occasionally, there is not enough space in the room I’m in to rig the light, so I often place the light in an adjacent room. Bottom Left: Sigrife is lit with an Amaran spotlight fitted with a set of barn doors to hold a Scattergel. Bottom Right: I used the same setup of a spotlight, barn doors and a Scattergel to light this shot of Victoria. The Scattergel delivers a beautifully dappled effect that elevates the picture to the next level.

04. Top Left: I lit Natalia with a single Speedlight into a small 30cm bright silver umbrella. The Speedlight was rigged just out of the shot on the left and was on full power. Top Right:  I used a Speedlight direct with just the Fresnel lens to light Chloe Jasmine. By driving the power of the flash to the maximum, I could underexpose the ambient light to give the shot some punch. Middle Left: For this shot of Vicky by a marine lake in Clevedon, UK, I rigged a Godox AD600 on a boom arm and set it just out of the shot on the right. By cutting the ambient exposure by three stops and setting the flash to full power, I correctly exposed Vicky. Middle Right: Martina is at an abandoned sugar factory near Rome in Italy. I wanted to create a striking shot influenced by album cover shots by Hypnosis in the 1970s. I used a Godox AD1200 flash in a 60cm silver brolly rigged in the shot on the left. When I had captured the pose I needed, I removed the flash and took another clean shot to enable me to remove the flash in post-production. This is an advantage of using a tripod, something I still do to this day despite having IBIS. Bottom Left: Just as in the shot above, I used a Godox AD600 on a boom arm, but this time, it was rigged directly above the model just out of the top of the frame. My go-to reflector for this flash head is an 18cm silvered dish reflector with a frosted diffused clip-on cover. Bottom Right: I used the same trick as in the shot above to light this shot of Martina in a cave near Rome. I used a Scattergel on a Godox AD200 fitted with barn doors to light Martina and when I had the shot in the can I removed the flash rig and took a clean frame to use in post production.

05. Top Left and Top Middle: I use an Amaran 200w LED spotlight fitted with barn doors and a Scattergel to light these portraits of Leontine in Belgium and Mischkah in Italy. I kept the ambient exposure low in both cases to deliver punchy shots. Top Right: Simona in a stable in Tuscany was lit with an LED panel light. A panel light is easy to pack in a suitcase and can run on a battery. Bottom Left: I used a continuous spotlight for this shot of Susanna in an abandoned farmhouse in Tuscany. The Scattergel is subtle here. Bottom Right: A simple Amaran spotlight with barn doors and a Scattergel was used for this shot of Sigrife in a disused church in Bristol, UK.

Working with just one light keeps the rig process simple and often delivers the most pleasing results. It doesn’t have to be complicated to be good. Please share this post and feel free to comment below.