svavar_shoot

Settings: Ambient is underexposed by 1/2 stop, and face is properly exposed using a small gridded softbox just outside frame left.

I saw this location when walking back to work from a coffee shop and knew I had to do a shoot. Their are boulders embedded in the wall, and ivy growing along the side. many of the boulders are high enough I knew I could crop out the ground and remove the sense of how high it was. I asked a friend to sit for me, and asked him to wear a suit. He told me he only had an older ill-fitting suit, but knowing his look, I thought it might work. He showed up in these ratty shoes, and at first I was a bit disappointed, but I think they work with the look. Newer shoes would have shown how disheveled the suit is.

Lighting was simple. I set my camera on a tripod and got the framing I wanted. At first I was using my 85mm lens to flatten everything, but I wanted to see a bit more of the wall, so I switched to my 50mm, which let me go closer and keep him larger in the frame while still showing a lot of the wall. Once I had that setup, I underexposed by 1/2 stop, set my small gridded softbox to the full 3 meter height of my light stand, and aimed it at his head height. I used the light meter to power the flash so it was properly exposing the face. This would give me a bit of focus on the face, without too much of a light intensity difference.

Once that was set, it was just a matter of getting a pose and expression I was interested in.

This image shows the before and after of the post work. I found the image overall was a bit too bright, and the wall lacked volume because the day was fairly overcast. I used the adjustment brushes in lightroom to make the top edges of the boulders pop, and another to deepen some of the undersides of ivy and boulders. Then I took it into photoshop, gave a bit of white sleeve to his left hand so it would look more balanced, then underexposed the whole image another small amount while leaving the face untouched. I cloned out the few small imperfections on the face not visible at this resolution, and went through my normal sharpening procedures to give more micro contrast.

zen_shoot

Settings: 1.5 meter softlighter to camera left and halfway between subject and camera, aimed at head and centered at head height, about 3 meters from subject. Metered at head to be properly exposed. Background was shutter dragged to come up to proper exposure as well.

I had asked this subject if I could photograph him over a year ago, and it just worked out this weekend to do a shoot. I had some locations in mind, and did a 1.5 hour location scout with my camera, 35, and 50mm lenses. Luckily I did this right before the actual shoot, so the lighting was identical between scout trip and the shoot itself. Doing a location scout is really pivotal. You don't want to feel rushed with the subject or you could miss some nice background elements trying to just find something quick. I pick locations based on "feel" and our eyes can take in a huge field of view, plus we are viewing "live". It takes exploration to find a single view for your camera that encapsulates this same "feeling" that you chose the location for. By having plenty of time by yourself with no lights, just your camera, you can find these views a lot easier. I'm constantly putting the camera up to my eye without taking a photo, just looking how things are compressed and what shows from that angle.

For the above shot, I loved how the trees went back into the background, and the serene feeling of the bare ground with just pine needles. This is a very uncommon setting in Iceland, tall trees like this and bare ground with no grass or weeds. I knew this was spot number one for the shoot. I experimented with different heights of the camera during the scout, and I knew I wanted my 35mm lens so I could see up into the trees, which would necessitate a low angle. The 50mm narrowed the view too much and you didn't get the same sense of height. I wanted a nice soft side light, so I used the 1.5 meter softlighter. I metered for the face, and then opened the shutter until the background came into a nicer exposure, 1/60th of a second. The rim light on his left side is from the bright sky coming through the open area of the tree trunks above, behind, and to the right.

In post, all I did was create a gradient adjustment in Lightroom for the top of the trees, which I boosted exposure by 1 stop, and made a bit more saturated, and added a slight orange color overlay to give it the sunny feel. The left side of this copse of trees had a road, where people were walking and cars driving, so in Photoshop I duplicated the layer, flipped it, and masked in just enough to show bushes on that side as well. I left as much of the original trees as possible to keep it from looking mirrored. I also made an adjustment layer for the ground, darkened it slightly and added more red so it wasn't so yellow.

This location was very close to the first, and uses all natural light. This is the main cemetery of Reykjavik, and it is an incredibly peaceful place. There are trees planted on most graves, and since the cemetery itself is about 150 years old, some of them are quite large. It's the most dense large forest in the capital area. This location was the hardest to scout. I wanted to capture the depth of the forest, and the serenity, without it being too cliche as a cemetery portrait location. I wanted peace, not morbidity. This tree was one of the more dense in it's foliage, and as such created the darkest area of the cemetery. I knew if I put the subject under it and facing out, I could get some nice soft light with decent shadows on the side facing the tree. We took a few shots of him looking toward me, but I had him look outward, and his profile looked great. I made sure to line it up so it was on top of the dark branch, to truly show the silhouette, and grabbed this image. It should really be viewed large to really appreciate the details and tonal depth. I love the composition of having the dark side and light side, but his sleeve and face serve as the main light spots in the dark half, properly drawing your eye to the foreground. His sleeve and the tree branch behind his head make a smooth S-curve with his face in the middle. The photo was mainly about the tones and composition, and I felt black and white treatment was more appropriate and would really let me draw out the details I wanted. The main color was the green of the foliage, his outfit was all grey and white, so the color version doesn't bring much.

Here are the other favorites from the shoot, all using natural light.

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.

lilja_in_the_greenhouse

Settings: Ambient read at f/1.4, and the flash aimed at just her face was at f/1.8

A quick one from this afternoon. My friend Lilja has bright red hair, and always has the coolest outfits on her facebook photos. I saw the polka dot tights and knew I had an image somehow. We were originally going to go into the woods for the shoot, but it started to look like rain. A friend had a greenhouse, and it quickly went from a proposed plan B to the best idea.

I had seen a magazine on the racks here in Iceland with what looked like a tintype image, and I was inspired at the color of the processing, and the faded colors of the image. I knew her bright red hair and the dress we had picked out would survive this processing, and would probably be made stronger because of it.

For setup, I put my black 1x2 meter frame just outside of camera left. This is serving to darken the shadows on that side. The greenhouse was glass on all sides, and it was an overcast day, there was almost no contrast or shadows inside the structure. The black board introduced a bit of contrast, but to properly expose her face, I had to totally blow out the background, which I did not want. I wanted the softest setting of my lens with the shallowest depth of field, so I locked it to f/1.8. At iso 100 and shutter speed of 1/125, this gave me f/2 where her face would be, too bright for what I wanted. Knowing that I was using the light tightly gridded to her face, I could go way above the sync speed.* I bumped the shutter to 1/250, taking the ambient to f/1.4.

Next I put the quadra on a boom, using the grid reflector with a 20 degree grid. This gave me a very tight beam of light, tighter and harsher than my softbox. I wanted to contrast the soft light of the rest of the image, and I knew I was going to use some softening post processing techniques, so the harder lighting would help the face still read when I was done. It was drizzling the entire time, which made me so glad I was using the quadra system, which is largely weather sealed. I put the cable in plug B, and lowered it to the lowest setting of 8.2. This gave me a reading inside the greenhouse where her face would be, of f/1.8, right where I wanted it.

Because of the light meter usage and the tripod to find my exact camera angle, once the model came out it was very fast. I directed her pose, (as an aside, I cleared the view of all modern day looking things like plastic bags of dirt and colored buckets, always control your scene), had her tilt her head in the direction I wanted, and fired a test. I could see the light was not far enough around to give me narrow lighting, it was more like a rim light, so I moved the boom to be closer toward me, and it hit both eyes for the look I wanted. We were done with the actual shooting bit within 10 minutes.

For post processing, I new I wanted to absolutely destroy the corners. First I used a lens blur set fairly low, and masked her out roughly. The items within the greenhouse were too contrasty and pulling focus from her, and this helped clear it up. Next I used a radial blur to really smear the corners the way a crappy lens does. I completely masked it away from her face though. Next I did a lot of color stuff. I made the shadows bluer, the highlights yellower. I made a blue/green layer that only went on the low shadow tones, but not the blacks. Then I made a desaturated green layer, set it to lighten, and only let it touch the deep blacks, effectively taking away the contrast of only the low end of the image, a typical look of antique photos. Finally I found a stain texture and a glass plate texture which I overlayed lightly to give it a bit of texture as if it were on paper. The whole goal was a contrast between a high quality center, with destroyed edges, and a desaturated fatigued look of the colors, with her hair and dress still shining through by virtue of their saturation.

*once you go above your maximum shutter speed (on the 5D it's 1/200, but with a skyport it's effectively 1/160 because of delay) you start to see the shutter blocking the flash on the image. however, that's only on the lower part of the frame, and it gets progressively higher in the frame the higher you go over the sync speed. If the area where the flash is hitting, is high in the frame, you can disregard the shutter creep shadow, because it's not evident anyway. In this image, her face is the only part getting flash, and it's "high" in the frame. I would have probably had to go to 1/320 to start to see the shutter creeping onto her face and blocking the flash.

smooth_rim_light

Settings: Face light is proper exposure, right rim is one stop above, left is about a half stop above.

I attend a Kettlebell class at a gym called Mjolnir (the name of Thor's hammer in norse mythology). The gym really loves having masculine aggressive imagery up, but I noticed that all of it was from foreign athletes, despite numerous staff members, as well as attendants, being just as muscular and photo worthy. I love Iceland, and any chance I can get to promote internal imagery rather than importing stuff made elsewhere, I try to encourage it. I decided to pursue a shoot with them, and do a test shoot before hand so that they would need to do very little imagination to see how it would come out.

Settings: Face light is proper exposure, right rim is one stop above, left is about a half stop above.

I knew I wanted rim light for the revealing effect it has on muscles, but I also wanted to light the face. Before going into the lighting, here is the setup shot. Click through to flickr to read the notes.

The main light is my standard 30x40 XXS softbox with a 20 degree grid to keep it just on the face. This is reading f/4 with the light meter, and my aperture is f/4. So the face is going to be properly exposed. The 2nd light is off to the side, it's shooting through the white diffusion panel, but also past it (you can see the edge on the floor where the light is spilling) and bouncing off the reflector. The rim is reading f/5.6 on the right side (for one stop over) and f/4.5 on the right for a slight over exposure. I would love to keep them even, but the light has further to go when bouncing off the reflector, and loses some light because of the inverse square law (double the distance, quarter the intensity). If I had a longer cable, I could bring the light way further back, to keep the distances more similar, but the cables were already at their limit. Having a light meter really helped a lot to be able to ensure proper exposure, and making sure my rim lights were coming out brighter than the main, and by how much.

For this one I sprayed him with a water spritzer to get a sweaty look going.

For the actual shoot, I am going to run both lights through diffusers to get even, smooth rim on both sides. To keep from getting skunk lighting on the face (a dark black line down the center) I will just put a silver reflector disc on a boom arm for some slight fill. I much prefer the rim look, and lighting the face too evenly removes the constrasty affect from the muscles. I'll post them when they're done.