I paint in oils with much more proficiency than my photography. I'm not very adept with a camera technically. I often use automatic settings even though I understand the basics - I find I'm not quick enough to figure out what I need for a given situation. But...

I'm wanting to organise a photoshoot with my four adult children around a table for a series of photos I can select from for a Caravaggio-style oil painting. Caravaggio means chiaroscuro and intense, rich colours. I am quite adept at weaving together an image from multiple photos seamlessly in photoshop (only have CS3) to use for painting. I gather I will need to take a bracketed range of images to play with for varied exposure. I haven't done bracketing but it seems straightforward.

(Here is an example of Caravaggio style that I have in mind. I'm not precisely reproducing this setup but it will be around a small table. This is part of a brilliant set of reproductions done by Diver & Aguilar.)

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My equipment. Very minimal:
Cannon 600d
Sigma 17-70mm 1:2.8-4 lens
Canon 50mm 1:1.8 lens
Lighting/flash - nothing. A desk lamp. I did a still life with this quite effectively but it's obviously inadequate.
I have a small tripod somewhere.

How do I achieve this with minimal equipment? I can't spend thousands on lights for this. I've come to you folk because many of you solve these problems creatively because this is where your expertise lies. But, to be my portrait I must take the image myself. I will obviously need to borrow or hire some equipment, and I would even pay for a photographer's time if they knew what they were doing to assist.

I'm sure I've chosen something rather difficult, but I do have a track record of pulling off overambitious things with almost no budget and starting out with inadequate knowledge and expertise. It's always a set of problems to solve. Knowing what these are is part of that. Finding the cheaper alternatives comes from talking to the right people.