mexican_lights

Settings: Background is properly exposed, flash into 1.5 meter softlighter II to camera right, with the light meter at face level powered to expose properly.

Agust and I went to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico last month. I actually lugged all of my studio lights down there for a photoshoot that didn't really pan out, but I went in knowing that might be the case. I made sure to use them anyway. The above photo used just the 1.5 meter softlighter. One problem is that the outside and inside are such different light types, the outside being harsh sunlight, and me being lit softly, that it looks composited or cut out. The fact they are even in brightness and focus is also contributing. This was intentional, as I wanted the outside to be clear and well lit to show just how nice the hotel and our balcony view was. In addition, it was unavoidable without neutral density filters. to properly expose the outdoors while staying under my sync speed (1/160), I had to go to f/11. This means that foreground and background on a 35mm lens (what I used) would be sure to be both in focus, even with the extreme distance from subject to distant background. If I did want a blurry background, a neutral density filter over the lens would let me increase the aperture. This is also a reason I'm glad I have the power of the Quadra, as I needed about 3-4 hotshoe flashes worth of power to equalize subject and background.

One thing I could have done, and did do for a later shot, is add a rim light. By adding a hard rim light, it reads visually as the sun coming onto the subject, which unifies the lighting, making for a less composited look.

Settings: Background is overexposed by half stop, flash into 1.5 meter softlighter II to camera right, with the light meter at face level powered to expose properly. 2nd flash through reflector with 20 degree grid behind subject to camera left, also properly exposed.

This blends much better with the outside exposure. The slight over exposure is what you expect from looking out a window, and the harder rim light feels like it could be the sun hitting the subject's head.

With both of us in the image, I wanted to use the window and blinds as framing elements, to show that it's on a balcony. This served as our vacation snap from the trip, and while I knew it would look partially cut out with both fore and background perfectly lit and in focus, I wanted both subjects to be prominent and clear. By using such a large source, I was able to keep it a little back and still get soft light, ensuring both of our heads would be the same exposure despite being different distances from the light. (the closer the source is, the more affect different distances from the light will have because of falloff. If the light was only 20cm away from the closer subject, 20cm between our heads would make 40 vs 20cm, for half the light, but with the light 2 meters away, it was 2 meters vs 2.2 meters, such a small difference as to be unnoticeable)

Post was minimal. Some contrast adjustments, and bumped both the blue and green colors so the sky and trees would pop a bit more.

Óðinn part 2

Settings: Ambient is 4 stops below neutral grey. One flash behind the model and aimed forward at 4 stops above neutral grey.

After the shoot out in the snow, we warmed up in the car and went back to the subject's flat to take some interior portraits. I used the 1x1.2 meter black/white backdrop I've spoke of before to get the pure black background. I set up a front flash into a silver umbrella for the front fill, and a back flash for the rim light. However the front flash was at full power, which takes 5 seconds to recharge, and I tried to take a photo before it had finished, and I got the first shot of this post, which ended up being my favorite. The flash is bouncing off his skin and hands to fill what little of his face you can see. The rest falls off into black.

When the main flash actually fired, it looks like this:



Settings: Ambient is 4 stops below neutral grey. One flash behind the model and aimed forward at 4 stops above neutral grey. One flash in front into a large silver umbrella, at 2 stops above neutral grey.

It was a very easy setup to throw together, and it turned his living room into a studio as long as I kept the framing tight. Any stray edges of room that peaked in were easily blacked out with a paint brush in photoshop.

I will definitely try to play more with the look of the original shot, aiming for it to be my actual lighting setup. The main problem I have with it, is that it's so blown out. I'd prefer to use a larger light source, maybe a large or small silver umbrella, and keep it from blowing out so intensely.

Fiona Evening part 2

Settings: Ambient was between 1-2 stops below neutral grey. The far background was 2 stops below, and the foreground was 1 stop below. Flash one is even with the photographer and aimed at the large white wall just outside camera right, turning it into a giant softbox. Flash one is about 2 stops above neutral grey. Flash two is off frame left, about 4 meters behind and to the left of subject, about 2.5 stops above neutral grey.

Next stop was a large church building on a hill overlooking the city lights. Here is the research shot I did.



I liked the rock, and originally I wanted to include the white wall and bench as well, but after I cropped tighter, I liked it much more with just the rock. First I got a good exposure with just the ambient, then I added the first flash and aimed it at the wall. This provided a beautifully big soft light for her front. Then I added a second flash to the left and behind. This one I zoomed to 105mm and aimed upwards so that just the feathered edge touched her. This prevented it from hitting the rock, for when I was taking wider crops earlier. This also made that flash weaker than it's lowest setting of 1/128.

Fiona was a natural, I barely had to direct her at all, she's just a glam-rocker and knew how to make love to the camera. The outfit was her choice too, but the red on black work so well in this dark city scape setting.

One more from this setup.

Belly Dancers part 2

Settings: Ambient is 4 stops below neutral grey. One flash into 110cm umbrella, 2 stops above neutral grey, on the right, and one flash into 61cm umbrella, at 1 stops above neutral grey, on the left. Both flashes were set to maximum height of about 2 meters, and angled at 45 degrees to the group.

These are from the same shoot as the last post. This dance group needed promotional shots for an upcoming show and asked me to help. Luckily they had a black seamless paper roll set into their ceiling, which made for a nice backdrop. Despite the sun streaming through the blinds, by using 1/250 and ISO 100, I was able to completely kill the ambient for some nice contrasty shadows. I asked the ladies to stand as far away from the background as possible, so that the shadows would be as unnoticeable as possible.



By putting the two lights at 45 degree angles, and at the maximum stand height, I could be sure that everyone would receive lighting, and there would not be too much shadowing to obscure details. This way I could focus on the ladies expressing themselves with the different dance poses, and not have to worry about them moving outside of the lighting area. I made sure to do the group shots first. It was the main reason for the shoot, so I wanted to make sure I had it in the bag, before people's energy wore off, or possible equipment failure.



Next I wanted to shoot individual portraits against the black seamless. The seamless was at a 45 degree angle to the camera and the subject. This ensured it went to full black, since less light was received by it. I also had a smoke machine outside frame left, which I turned on briefly before each shot, in order to add some interest to the floor level, rather than leave it plain.



Settings: Ambient is 4 stops below neutral grey. One flash into 61cm umbrella at 2 stops above neutral grey, to the left and at maximum stand height, facing down. Second flash is through gridspot, at 3 stops above neutral grey, to the right, aimed at just the head and shoulders.

This time, with only one subject, I had more freedom with lighting. I placed the 61cm umbrella to the left, aiming down. This would ensure the face and upper body was fully lit, but the lighting would fade out toward the floor, creating a natural focal point. I put my gridspot on the 2nd flash, and put it behind the subject, and to the right. I used the modeling light to ensure it was only hitting the head, and was gone by about the waist level. This gave me a bit of separation against the black background, ensuring the silhouette is clearly visible.



I wanted the dancers to look a bit regal, so I was crouched on the floor, to have a bit of an upwards facing angle. In post, I used a curves layer to make the smoke extremely punchy, and the background go extremely dark. I made a quick mask to keep it off the subject, and blurred it to fade smoothly. I used an inverted version of this mask, to warm the subject slightly. This color contrast also gives it a bit of pop between subject and background.

The shoot was quick and fun, and the girls had a great attitude about it. The fact there was no one there but myself, one other photographer who assisted me, helped keep them at ease, which enabled great posing and expressions. Too many extras might have introduced some self consciousness and stiffness. I was glad I did a bit of pre-visualization before heading out, as I was able to work much faster after getting there and setting up.

Covered Garage

Settings: Ambient is 1 stop below neutral grey (other than the lighting fixture itself, which is 3 stops above) Main flash is into a 61cm umbrella at 1.5 stops above neutral grey. Secondary flash is aimed at the wall behind the circular opening, and is about .5 stops above neutral grey.

Several weeks ago, I passed a really interesting covered parking garage here in Reykjavik. I knew instantly that I wanted to use it as a backdrop for a photoshoot. The concrete and the long lights provided so much interest, and would contrast really well with a subject. In my mind, I wanted to do a full body portrait with a lot of the garage showing, but those shots didn't turn out so well. It was all the impromptu posings and backgrounds that worked best.

This was actually the final area/pose of the evening, and I think it worked best of all. I saw the circular opening, and knew I wanted to use it as a framing element. I asked her to stand inside it and put her arms out. The first several poses had good compositionl, but the way the light fell on her face wasn't very flattering. I took some time to examine the back of the screen, and asked her to move her head a bit forward so that more flash would reach it. This is one of those times where sticking to the shoot and asking for more, to ensure you get the right shot.




The post processing was actually quite involving, but because I felt there was so much potential to be had. Lately I've been shooting all my flashes ungelled, and color correcting in post, because I ended up doing that anyway to get the right colors, and this way I save time from having to bother with the gels. The first thing I did was to clone out the other circle in the top. It sucks because had I noticed it at the time, I could have reshot crouched just a bit lower, and it would have been gone. Once I had a clean plate, I used the liquify tool to slenderize her arms and waist a bit. The coat was extremely thick and killed her curves. Next I used the magic lasso tool to make a quick mask for the background, and used the cooling photo filter in photoshop. Then I made a custom white balance layer to subract the yucky green color from the flourescent lamp. I had to custom paint that mask onto her face and the concrete in order to remove it correctly. I liked the lamp a lot for what it adds to the composition, but the disgusting green had to go. Finally I used a slight warming filter on her skin to give it just a bit of warmth. Once the photo was where I wanted it, I used my typical high pass and smart sharpen combo to add some more micro contrast, but masked it away from everything in the face, other than the eyes, and edges of the nose. Female skin works well soft, so I left it that way, but eyes tend to look good with some sharpness.



Settings: Ambient is 2 stops below neutral grey. Main flash is into a 61cm umbrella at 1.5 stops above neutral grey.

This one is the result of a technique I've been trying lately with models. I asked her if there was any pose she was interested in trying, or thought would look good. She suggested having her hand by her mouth, and it worked out great. It took a few times of arranging the light till I was happy with how it fell, but I really like the final.



For the post on this image, I cooled the background, reduced the neon green of her ribbon, and tucked in the front of the jacket, and jacket sleeve. The shadow from her back made her look unnaturally wide, so I used an exposure layer to bring up the edge of the jacket and sleeve a bit, as if there was bounce light from the wall. I also fluffed up her hair a bit using the liquify tool.



Settings: Ambient is 1.5 stops below neutral grey. Main flash is into a 61cm umbrella at 1.5 stops above neutral grey to the right and in front of the subject, above head height. Secondary flash is zoomed to 105mm and through a gridspot, aimed at her head so that it only hits her hair. The secondary flash is about 2 stops above neutral grey.

This one is closest to my original mind's eye image of the shoot. I used a classic female pose, found on a 70's tutorial somewhere, and it helped, as originally she wasn't 100% sure of what pose to assume. We tried several, but I think this one was the most feminine and confident looking.




This one took the most time in post. Immediately I used liquify to remove the effects of the thick coat. During the shoot I asked if it was possible for her to angle her arm back in such a way that I could see a triangle of the wall between her elbow and the small of her back, as that's a very feminine aspect of the body. It was too constricting of a coat, and too uncomfortable of a position, so I added that part in photoshop. I cloned a bit of wall in to look like you're seeing through, then darkened the coat to make it look as if it really ended there.

Next I adjusted white balance on everything, neutralizing the green of the ceiling lights, and warming her face just a bit. I used a curves layer to add a lot more contrast to the background, and then used a technique from the Platon copy that I did. I used the mask of her figure to create an exposure layer, that darkens the image in a halo around her. It's only by about .4 stops, but it emphasizes her silhouette more and brings attention to her as the subject, allowing the background to fade away.

It was a great shoot, and many thanks to Chantal for being a lovely, willing model, and to Árnór who assisted.

Pushup self-portrait

I was watching the movie, "Never Back Down" which was a bit cheesy, but fun. They did a section where they filmed the main character doing pushups, but did it with the camera oriented on it's side, then righted the footage so that the character looked as if he was pushing off a wall instead of the floor. I thought it would be a cool opportunity for a photograph, so when the movie was over, I set about emulating it.

First, I knew I wanted to use something soft-ish for the main light, but I wanted to create as much volume as possible, this was a good opportunity for my new 61cm umbrella. My main umbrella is 110cm, which would have made a much softer light, which would not have defined the muscles as well. 61cm is a great in between a bare flash and a huge umbrella when you want strong details that still have a soft edge. I had to move it toward the camera a few times until it revealed just the right amount of detail. I wanted a rim light that still raked across the muscles on the front. It's still slightly behind the subject, aiming a bit forward.

After the main was set, I started with the second flash. I tried at first to place it directly behind the head, and use as a bright rim light all around the head. It wasn't quite strong enough though, and didn't really give the effect that I wanted. I moved it off of the light stand, and attached it to the small stand the flash came with. It was about even with the main flash, and aimed up at the subject's head. However it spilled onto the arms, making them far too bright. After attaching a gridspot, I was able to keep it only on the face/torso and not on the arms.



Settings: Ambient is 5 stops underexposed. Main flash is into a 61cm silver umbrella at one stop above neutral grey. Secondary flash is at 1.5 stops above neutral grey, and is using a gridspot to keep it only on the face/torso and not on the arms.

After rotating the image to achieve the original planned look, I was quite happy with the result. The background did not go quite dark enough, as you can see from the setup shot. A quick pass with the burn tool gave me a true black background, which I think adds to and heightens the mood of the shot.

Andres Portraits

Settings: Ambient is 2 stops underexposed, Right light is into a silver umbrella at 1 stop above neutral grey, and left light is a bare flash zoomed to 105mm and aimed at his head, at 1.5 stops above neutral grey.

This was a shoot that I´d been planning for several weeks and I only finally had time this past weekend. I´d originally planned to reuse the fishtank setting, which is why I asked the model to wear all white, but the office was extremely busy so we improvised. This is a nice park near the model´s house, and it offered some really interesting settings. It was cold and we needed to work fast. Luckily I had an assistant to hold my lightstand so I could use an umbrella. The lighting setup was very simple, the main flash was into a silver umbrella for a nice even and soft light, and the rim light was a bare flash zoomed to 105mm so that only his head and shoulders would get rim lighting and I wouldn´t get a 2nd ugly shadow on the ground. As we moved from setting to setting, we only had these two, very light, light stands to move around, and it enabled me to quickly get all the shots I wanted. As the ambient level dropped, I was able to just open the shutter more to compensate.



Because his skin is a bit darker, I needed to make a bit brighter exposure, but this risked blowing out the bright white clothing. Luckily my 40D has quite a bit of raw headroom to bring the highlights down, so it worked quite well. I just used a little bit of the recovery slider in lightroom to bring the clothing down, while leaving his face well exposed. The white clothes help to contrast with his darker skin tones, to bring more attention to the focal point (his face).



For this one, because I couldn't physically put the rim light behind him (we were on the edge of the dam, so only open water was behind this railing) I put the second light against the railing, and it provided a bit of fill, giving an almost glowing affect to his face that I like very much. It manages to not quite overlap the main light, so you still get some nice shadows to give his face volume. If either light had been brought around closer to the camera axis, they would have overlapped and been flattening to his facial structure.

Once I had a good lighting ratio, it was all about getting a good pose, and composition. It was so nice to have that freedom of knowing I would get good light, and be able to focus more on the portrait experience. I could switch lenses quickly for different framing aspects, and I mostly used my 28mm, my 35mm and my 85mm lenses.



For this headshot, I would have changed the height of the rim light so that his collar didn't create such a harsh line on his chin. The light was in a ditch and it was already at it's full height. I should have moved the model to the ditch and placed the light a full meter higher to ensure the collar didn't cast a hard line across his chin.

There is something to be said for using classic lighting setups. You can be sure to achieve a nice result lighting wise, and can concentrate more on the subject and the composition.

View the rest of the set.

Simple portraits

Settings: Ambient is 3 or 4 stops underexposed. Left light is a flash into a silver umbrella at 2 stops above neutral grey, and right flash is through a Lumiquest softbox 2 at 1 stop above neutral grey.


I have felt a bit like I might be trying too hard to deviate from "safe" and standard lighting, so I have been wanting to try some more traditional lighting setups. By putting the umbrella at the same height as his head, and aiming it horizontally instead of angled down, it emulates window lighting quit well, and is very soft. The right side light does an ok job of filling, but I think either another umbrella, or just bouncing that flash off the ceiling to raise the light of the room would have looked nicer. It would have kept the harsh shadow from the left side of his nose.

The background is just a piece of black posterboard taped to the wall. I'm going to add to my kit a length of black, and white fabric to use as quick backdrops.



Settings: Ambient is 3 or 4 stops underexposed. Left light is a flash into a silver umbrella at 2 stops above neutral grey, and right flash is bare, zoomed to 105mm at 3 stop above neutral grey.

For this shot, first Agust got ready for the Gothtasm Halloween party by dying his hair and applying makeup. Since it was such an effort, I decided it would be good to document it. This is a fairly standard setup also. The silver umbrella is a little high and aimed down, to produce nice directional lighting. The right flash provides a really nice rim light along the cheek and back of the head, for a bit of separation from the background. I think this is easily my favorite lighting setup.

I had to get in on the action too.



As a slight aside, I recently purchased a photo editing monitor. The HP LP2475w. It's a 24" monitor that uses an S-IPS panel, which is a true 8 bit panel, that does a very wide gamut of colors. It's a huge upgrade from my little 17" laptop, both in color accuracy and brightness. I also got a monitor calibrator to ensure color accuracy. Even just looking at other people's photos is more fun now, because I can see so much more detail and dynamic range. I highly suggest ensuring you have a good monitor with accurate color (either an S-IPS or S-PVA panel, not all LCD panels are made the same way, TN and TFT which is the most common used panels, are not true 8 bit color) and a monitor calibrator to ensure you're getting your colors correct. I know I've been over compensating for my poor monitor quality in past photos by pushing the contrast and colors a bit too far.

Fishtank

Settings: Ambient light is -3 stops below neutral grey. Green rim light is +1 stops, and Main fill is +1 stops. Rim light is from the right, through the fishtank, slightly behind the subject but aimed toward subject head. Fill is snooted and aimed directly at head, and is forward from subject and to the left (of camera).

This was a quick test over the weekend for a shoot I have coming up. I wanted to be more familiar with the setting, what works, and what doesn't. The main worry of mine, was that I wanted a flash coming through the fishtank to use as a rim light. It took some experimenting to get it to work. First I tried putting the flash on the opposite side of the tank pointing forward, but that created too much flare, and didn't give me the rim light I was looking for. Then I put the flash on the right side of the tank, and aimed it forward. This gave me the rim light that I needed. Now it was a matter of balancing ambient and the main flash.

On the above photo, the green light on the right side of my face is the rim light from the flash aimed through the tank. Even though the flash was at 1/1 power, and full 105mm zoom, I had to bump the ISO up to 400 and drop my aperture to f/3.5 in order to get that rim to the brightness I wanted. This was my hard point around which all other settings had to revolve, because this was the only option that worked.

Next, I figured out my ambient level by opening the shutter till it was where I wanted (I almost always start at 1/250 shutter when using flash) I wanted the ambient to remain dark, so it's about -3 stops from neutral grey. I had a few with it opened up more, but it was not enough contrast for my taste, and the fishtank started to blow out.

Now that I had my ambient balanced with the rim light, I needed my main light. I started with it at 1/128 and 105mm zoom, aimed directly at the head, but this was still too bright. The face where it hit was completely blown out. Since the 580ex doesn't go lower than 1/128, and I didn't have any ND filters with me, and the other settings were already anchored down, I only had one choice, and that was to start backing the light away from the subject. Every time the distance doubles, you get 1/2 the light. The more I backed it up, the more of the subject that would be lit, and I wanted it restricted to just the face. I popped on my grid-spot, to constrain the light to a tighter beam, and that did the trick. I got my main, ambient and rim all balanced in a way that worked.

After shooting, there was some cleanup. I had an unsightly shadow on the right from the snoot, and some junk in the fishtank that didn't add to the composition. This is where Photoshop comes in.



First, I boosted the shadows a bit. I could have gotten this by opening the shutter another 1/3 stop when I was shooting. Next, I cooled down the white balance of everything but the subject's skin. Then I removed the shadow on the couch and grey fishtank, and then cloned out the junk in the fishtank itself. Finally I used highpass and smart sharpen to bring a little extra medium and micro contrast to the face and hands.

Now I feel prepared to do a more elaborate shoot in this location based on this experiment. The majority of the problems have been solved, and I'll just have to concentrate on composition with a group and directing my subjects. If I'd left these technical aspects till the shoot itself, I would have either frustrated my subjects with all the back and forth, or I would have rushed myself and not gotten the result that I wanted.

Kitty Cowboy

This was an incredibly fun shoot, and came together so well for such a last minute thing. Some of it was luck, but also just developing a shooting style that works fast and furious and being really comfortable with my gear helped a ton. Because of how cold it was, I had my lighting stands already assembled with umbrella swivels attached, flash attached, and skyports velcroed and plugged in. This let me start shooting within about 5 minutes of arriving to the shoot location.

The settings for these was fairly simple, and I'm going to follow David Hobby's advice and stop listing details and start listing the useful information.

Camera was set to about -2 stops from ambient (meaning the sky was about middle grey, and the model was almost black with no flashes)
Flash one was set to +4 stops from ambient, and flash two was set to +2 from ambient level. This means flash two was making sure the model was properly exposed, and flash one was giving me some bright rim light.

I started by shooting without flashes, and getting my sky at the exposure that I wanted, ignoring the model. Then I raised one flash stand to full height, and one to about waist height. I was planning to use the tall one for my bright rim light, and the low one for fill. As I shot, I was constantly repositioning the flashes to work with the pose and setting. This is where having light, easy to relocate light stands was a real benefit. Every time I wasn't happy with the light position, I just picked up the stand and moved them. No cables, no weights, no light mods to worry about.



For this one I wish I had lowered the output of the secondary flash (the one on the left) so that her face wasn't lit so evenly, but it worked out alright.



These old gears were too awesome not to use as a prop.

For these shots, I tried using my flashes "un gelled" meaning they were pure white. This way I can color correct afterwards. It takes a bit more time, but I was finding that I was doing this even on my gelled shots to match everything just the way I wanted. This makes it faster for me to not have to use and balance gels, knowing I will do the correcting at the end.

I also placed the stronger light always in the same direction as the sun light was coming, so that it would look more natural. I think in the first shot, it isn't completely apparent that flashes were used, which is a look I'd like to be able to control on command.

There are more shots in the remainder of the set.

Tunglið and Spheres

Settings:
2x 580ex II
Main flash at 1/128,
at 105mm zoom,
light stand at 2 meters height,
2 meters to the left and 1.5 meters forward from subject,
Rim light at 1/128,
at 105mm zoom,
light stand at 1 meters height,
2 meters to the right and slightly behind subject.

This weekend I did two different shoots, one outside and one inside. My main goal was working with bare lights and trying to come up with flattering positions for them. I feel like I've learned a bit more how to use them, but I'm also realizing there is a limitation as to how flattering you can make bare flashes, especially outdoors where the ambient is low. The next few weeks I'll be investigating how I can soften the light while still having some good throw.



Settings:
2x 580ex II
Main flash at 1/128,
at 105mm zoom,
light stand at 2.5 meters height,
3 meters to the left and 2 meters forward from subject,
Rim light at 1/128,
at 105mm zoom,
light stand at 2 meters height,
3 meters to the right and even with subject.

For these, I knew I wanted to do a shoot with this subject, but wasn't 100% sure on the location. However driving to his house, I saw how great the moon was over the distant mountains. Ideally I would have arrived about 30 minutes earlier and it would have been a lot nicer with a higher ambient light level. Even with the flashes to freeze the subject, I would have liked to have had a tripod with me to help use even slower shutter speeds, especially with the sitting shots, as I used an 85mm zoom lens for those. There were already lights present for the ship statue, and they illuminated the subject enough to cause blurring with shutter speeds any slower.



Settings:
2x 580ex II
Main flash at 1/128,
at 105mm zoom,
through gridspot,
light stand at 2 meters height,
directly in front of subject 1 meter away aimed at his face,
Rim light at 1/128,
at 105mm zoom,
light stand at 2 meters height,
1.5 meters to the right and 1.5 meters behind subject.

For this, I wanted to utilize these glowing ball lamps that I had. It didn't turn out quite how I envisioned in my head when I wanted to do this shot, but it was still fun and gave me practice. I started by placing my camera on a tripod to the height and angle that I wanted. I then positioned the light spheres so the fit into the frame composition how I wanted. I placed a backpack in the position that the subject's face would be, and arranged my flashes so that I could determine placement and power. The front flash had a grid spot on it to confine the flash only to his face.

Once I had the placement and power of the flashes, I was able to darken the ambient by increasing the shutter speed to 1/250. If I had wanted to decrease it even more, I could have changed to ISO 100, increased power to both flashes by 1 stop, and left shutter speed and aperture the same, and the ambient would have been one stop darker.

More from these two sets:

Clamshell lighting

I saw a few medium format portraits yesterday that had a beautiful creamy depth of field to it, and I wanted to see if I could emulate it with my camera. I feel like I got close with this.

Here is the setup shot:



Settings:
2 Canon 580ex II
Top flash at 1/32 power,
at 24mm,
into silver bounce umbrella
light stand was at 1.5 meters height,
directly in front of subject and angled down,
bottom flash at 1/64 power,
at 24mm,
through white shoot-through umbrella,
light stand at .3 meters height,
directly in front of subject angled up.

The lower flash was essentially 2 stops dimmer than the upper flash. It was dialed down one stop, plus the white umbrella eats an extra stop of light than the silver. The result is a very smooth lighting with a little direction from above. These low settings of 1/32 and 1/64 in a dark room allowed me to use f/1.8 which is how I got such a smooth and strong fall off of focus. I tried it with a background slave flash set, which illuminated the background, but that washed out the nice focus, so I turned it back off.

For post, I adjusted contrast slightly, and clarity slightly, desaturated a little. Then in Photoshop I added a +.3 exposure to just the eyes, and then used highpass and smart sharpen, but with masks to limit it to just the part of the image that was in focus, so that I wasn't sharpening the out of focus areas.

Kirkjuljos

The title of this post means Church Light in Icelandic.



I saw this church several weeks ago at night, and knew instantly that it would be a perfect setting for a shoot. I had several friends lined up to ask to help pose for the shoot, but either my schedule or theirs precluded it. After buying a new jacket and wanting a way to show my friends, I figured I would do a trial run with myself as a the model. A bit more difficult, but this way there was no rush.

I did a bit of planning beforehand in my mind, I knew I wanted to:
Use symmetry as a framing element,
Use the running lights of the sidewalk to draw the eye in,
have the entire church visible,
have a contrasty dark blue sky,
and try not to overlight it.

My first step was to get a good angle and decide on a lens. Originally I tried my 10-20mm, but it was far too wide, and it's minimum aperture at 20mm is 5.6, which was horrid for the lighting conditions. I knew I needed my 35mm f/1.4 to pull in enough light. I set it up on a tripod and got a good angle, then using my remote trigger, I tested at which running light I should be even with for proper framing. Then I used the live view to fine tune the focus onto that running light, and locked the lens to manual focus. At 1.4, the DoF is incredibly narrow, about .4 meters.

Once I had the angle I wanted, I wanted a photo using natural light only, so I could try to emulate it. Here is a photo with no flashes used.



It's not a bad lighting scenario, but the lights are heavily tinted (streetlights) and not bright enough. I setup my flashes so that they sat at the same angle as the streetlights, and angled them up so that it would feather downward and not create a glaring shadow at my feet.

Here is the setup shot:



Settings:
2 Vivitar 285hv
Right flash at 1/16 power,
at tele zoom,
angled up,
light stand was at 1.5 meters height,
left flash at 1/32 power,
at tele zoom,
angled up,
light stand was at 1.5 meters height,
5 meters to right of subject 3 meter forward from subject.

In hindsight, I wish I would have used CTOrange gels. I had to fake it in post with a photo filter in photoshop, as the lights were far too blue when I balanced for the rest of the scene.

Once I had the lights the brightness that I wanted, and a good angle, I poured water all over the sidewalk (I had brought a 2 liter bottle of water) in order to get some reflections off the ground to add more lighting interest.



For post settings, I took the sky from the first shot, and used it for all the subsequent shots. It started getting cloudy after that shot, and the sky was just a flat orange from the city lights bouncing off the clouds. I edited the curves of the sky layer to bring up the blues and greens in the highlights, and the reds and blues in the shadows. Then I balanced all the light sources. I used a warming filter for the subject to kill the blueish cast of the flashes, a magenta filter for the green flourescents of the church lights in the background on the ground level, and a color correction layer for the sidewalk to remove the magenta cast of the WB correction that was used on the entire scene. If I'd used CTOrange gels, I would have had one less light source to correct in post. Then I used the high pass method of sharpening, but limited it only to the subject, and the ground that was in focus. I used this same mask to smart sharpen as well. I think bokeh becomes incredibly ugly when sharpened, so I leave it out of that step.

Once I had everything setup, I could just stand there with my remote trigger and try a bunch of poses, trying to think about how the flash would fall on me based on the angle I was standing, and also thinking about where my weight was distributed, how my stature and posture would make the final image look, and making sure to straighten any wrinkling of my clothes from those poses. It would have been great to have had a stylist on hand, but you work with what you have!

Fashion shoot

A friend of mine, Sruli Recht is a tailor and shoemaker, and he routinely asks me to shoot his products for his website. Above is a jacket he´s made, and underneath is a protective brace. Some people have ribcages that will pop out of socket if not held in, and this brace does just that, but it´s a designed product from a tailor, rather than a medical product.

Here is a shot of just the brace:


Settings:
2 Vivitar 285hv
main flash at 1/4 power,
at wide zoom,
into silver 43" bounce umbrella,
light stand was at 2 meters height,
1 meters to right of subject 1 meter forward from subject,
2nd light was at 1/16 power,
at wide zoom,
2 meters to subject left, and .5 meters forward from subject,
at 1.5 meters in height.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a setup shot, however it was very simple. The background is a plain piece of cloth, and both lights are basically at 45 degree angles aimed at the subject. this eliminates the shadows on the back wall, and creates a very even lighting. However the fact one flash is bare, and one flash is using an umbrella, gives a nice difference in quality of light from one side to the other. One side has soft, broad lighting, and the other has a bit harsher, sharp lighting. I will definitely use this type of setup in the future. I was working right at 1/250 to kill as much ambient and darken the shadows as much as I could, since this cross-lighting would otherwise create a too-even lighting if the ambient was allowed to leak in.

Here is an angle that shows how hard the left light was, based on the hard shadow line from his nose across the cheek. The edge of the cheek shows the soft falloff from the right flash. The other nice part of this lighting setup, is the subject could rotate freely with no need to adjust the lights.



I ended up doing quite a bit of post on these shots. Mainly to adjust the subject's physique.



I started by using the warp and liquify tool to readjust the main proportions, then I quickly cloned out any skin imperfections (which there were very few), and then proceeded to use the dodge and burn tools to add in muscle definition. I finally used a regular brush with a flesh color, set to saturation, to add back in the color that dodge and burn tend to remove. Finally, I enhanced or added in catch lights to the eyes to make it feel more vibrant.