The setup you see here took only about twenty minutes to prepare. The camera was mounted to the tripod in the position shown, at a low angle. The foreground dressing is some "lunar dust" sprinkled and heaped onto a piece of wood placed directly in front of the camera lens to hide the edge of the table that the model was sitting on. This is known as "Dressing To Camera", whereby , unlike a display diorama, the only thing that matters is what the camera lens actually sees, and that is the only area where attention is paid to detail.

The main problem with using these simple work lights for this kind of shot is that there is a fairly prominent "hot spot" or extra bright area on the part of the scene that is closest to the key light. This problem can be reduced somewhat if you have more room to get the light further away from the set. The other alternative is to use light that is lensed, such as that from a slide projector or professional spotlight. Using lensed light would also create harsher, more realistic shadows.

This simple setup is very similar to the way professional special effects shots are done for film and TV, except of course, the pros have more room, bigger models and access to much better and more expensive equipment!

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