We actually shot this in a rental studio right above my own studio. In fact, we were using both, since there were several shots as part of this campaign. I'd go from one studio to the next, as preparations were being made, to set up and test lighting. I spent a day on this shot alone.

As I mentioned, lighting this forest was a bear. We had to find a sweet spot for each light, to avoid ungainly shadows. What we ended up doing was moving various trees out of the light path while still maintaining what, to the camera, appeared to be a tight configuration that would not impede the models as they tramped through the woods.

We'll begin with the backdrop lighting. We had three P70 heads with medium grids aimed into a white wall. I didn't want the wall to appear flat, so it would be reminiscent of the mottled lighting in a forest. These heads ran off Verso packs, with one pack driving two heads. The second Verso pack also drove a medium Para reflector aimed into the set from the rear right, mainly hitting the trees. This parabolic reflector head stood 7 to 9 feet up. Opposite this reflector, on the left side of the set, we had a Flooter (running off a Grafit A2), which gave us a really nice edge on the male talent. We had another Flooter on the right, just at the near edge of the Para, giving us a bit more edge lighting on the talent.

Proceeding toward the front of the set, on the extreme right side we have a Grafit A4 driving a hard Satellite, which was positioned 30 feet from the female talent. This is a directional light, almost on axis with her, but slightly in front (relative to camera position). I based the exposure on this light. I should also point out that we had a 6 x 6 silk in front of this light to soften shadows.

Now we swing around to the lights on the other side of the camera, and we have a soft Satellite running off a Grafit A4, aimed at the talent from an overhead angle on a boom, for fill. Adding still more fill was a V-flat farther back, also on this side. And to ensure that the faces popped, I had a ring light on the camera lens.

One final note: we were having a problem with the bottle appearing too flat. So we photographed it separately, compositing this shot into the final image. We lit that as it was held by an assistant, adding a white card behind the bottle. We also found that adding milk gave us the needed luminosity to make the bottle pop.

Brian Kuhlmann, www.briankuhlmann.com, specializes in lifestyle, fashion and portraiture for advertising and editorial, and is based in Chicago.