Shadows and Light — Playing with Additive Colour in the Studio

February 2026 and the inaugural   camera club monthly challenge was Shadows and Light.

I wanted to do something in the studio rather than go hunting for natural shadow — and ended up down a bit of a  rabbit hole with coloured gels and additive mixing that I’d recommend to anyone with a few strobes and an afternoon to spare.
A lot of fun!

The Setup

Three Godox AD100 heads on C-stands, each fitted with a coloured gel. No specialist gel holders needed — the AD100’s magnetic modifier ring lets you slip a gel between the head and the connector, which keeps things simple. I used three gels that looked roughly distinct from each other and let the mixing take care of itself.

My Camera settings:

1/200s, f/18, ISO 80. Dark enough ambient to let the strobes do all the work.

How Additive Colour Mixing Works

When you mix pigments — paint, ink — you’re working subtractively. Mix enough colours together and you get closer to black. Light works the opposite way. Mix coloured light sources together and you move toward white. That’s additive mixing.

The practical result: where two coloured lights overlap, you get a third colour. Where all three meet, you get something close to white. The shadows — where one or two lights are blocked — become the colours themselves. The object casting the shadow isn’t dark. It’s coloured.

What was really important for this image is that all three strobes converged on the vase and rose itself – which hopefully was going to create a white light – illuminately the subject in its true colour. 

What I’d Do Differently

I wasn’t particularly scientific about gel selection — I just picked three that looked suitably different. Starting with closer-to-primary colours (red, green, blue) would give you more predictable results and more saturated shadow colours. That said, the unpredictability is half the fun.

How long did it take?
Set up – 25 mins, Shooting  15-20 mins. Edit – 15 mins

Kit Used

Three Godox AD100 heads (Quarter Power)— the Godox AD100 Pro kit is available from Barker Photographic if you’re looking to get into portable strobe work.

Camera Nikon Z8.
Lens   50mm 1.2 s