When I set up lighting, I usually have set everything before I even take the camera out of its case. This shot of "Headly" is the first shot, straight out of the camera with no adjustment. I'd tweak a few things but it's almost there as is.

Those who follow my blog will remember Headly, my head assistant. In the blog I wrote about Headly, I said that he never says anything. I was mistaken.

He actually says a lot.

A few days ago we were in the studio doing a portrait lighting refresher/101 with staff and intern, and I made the point that if you know how to light, you should not need the camera until you're set up. You set lights where they need to be in terms of distance, height and angle. You determine the exposures of the key, fill, kicker and background lights. Then, you set the camera – you tell the camera the exposure, not vice versa – and use the image for refinements.

To this end, we set up studio strobes for classic 45 degree lighting, 2:1 ratio, determining the exposure with a flash meter.  Only after everything was set up did we pick up the camera and shoot Headly, who had been very patiently standing in for us. This is the first shot, straight from camera with no cropping, adjustment or refinements.

This is when Headly speaks. Looking at the shot, Headly told us that the exposure was spot on.  The backlight was about right but could be adjusted for less spill on the left. The key light should go up just a bit higher, but not much.  Kickers usually need adjustment for each person due to hair color and male pattern baldness anyway, but we had it at a good start position and exposure. He also told us that we had the color right for the subject, but that we'd have to adjust the background color in Photoshop – it was a little red. (Since the color was right for Headly, tweaking in PS is the best correction option).

Not lost for words, Headly told us other things as we moved lights to play with exposure and lighting styles.

Besides a photo lighting assistant, Headly proved a great teaching assistant. When I teach lighting, I don't follow the traditional approach of starting outdoors in natural light and then gradually adding lights and working students into the studio. As an instructional designer, that's backwards to me. I've found that if you want to learn lighting, start in the studio with the four basic lights. It's the best way to fully understand what each light does, ratios, modifiers, etc. Only after you understand these does everything else you learn about lighting make sense.

And if you have Headly, so much the better.