Óðinn part 1

Settings: Ambient is .5 stops below neutral grey. One flash to camera right, aimed up so that just the bottom edge touches his face, at 1.5 stops over neutral grey.

I'd been wanting to take photos of my friend Óðinn for a while, and finally got a chance to. We did a multi-part shoot to make the most of our time. This is where being mobile really pays off. I'm convinced that with studio strobes and a large battery pack, with the extra time it would take to set everything up, we would not have been able to fit this much in. The daylight was fading fast, and we had a narrow window when the light was perfect.

I've been to this location before, but not during the snow. It opened some really nice possibilities. The sky was still quite bright, and was providing a nice soft even light, this provided for some nice photos with no lighting equipment needed.





After a few nice shots in this setting, we moved to these wooden beach chairs that were covered in snow. There was some beautiful light still coming from the horizon, and I just wanted to add a touch of light with the strobes, to bring attention to his face. I could have oriented myself on the side of the light, but it would have given me a much darker background, and I wanted some of the interesting sunset in the background.



Settings: Ambient is .5 stops below neutral grey. One flash to camera right, aimed up so that just the bottom edge touches his face, at 1.5 stops over neutral grey.

The biggest thing that I learned from this shoot, is that when using an unmodified flash, and letting in enough ambient to make the shadows not so harsh, I like "short portrait lighting". You can find a detailed explanation here. The quick explanation, if the flash is illuminating the front of the face and the side of the face you can see, it's "broad" lighting. If it's illuminating the front of the face, and leaving the side of the face you can see in shadow, it's "short" lighting. Broad lighting with an unmodified flash is less pleasing (to me) than short lighting. I hadn't consciously recognized this preference of mine till this shoot, and I'll let it dictate my lighting placement for future shoots.

Here is an example of broad lighting. I like the pose and composition, but wish I had taken this photo with short lighting instead. The broad lighting is leaving his face too flat for my taste, and not bringing in enough of the colored shadow from the ambient to tie him into the background.



Settings: Ambient is 1 stops below neutral grey. One flash to camera right, at 1 stops over neutral grey.

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.

Gróto again

Settings:
1 Vivitar 285hv
flash at 1/2 power,
through 1/4 CTOrange gel,
at normal telephoto zoom,
into silver umbrella,
light stand was at 2 meters height,
light was .5 meters to left and even with camera,
aimed directly at subject.

Whenever the sunset is looking nice, I am always tempted to run down with any available subject and do some portraits. This past Saturday I gave in to the temptation and raced down. It was quite windy, so I was limited in where I could place the umbrella. I had my left arm straight out, holding the light stand. I gelled the flash slightly, so that in post, I could adjust the WB to be a bit bluer, but still retain a warm look to the subject. I started at my max sync speed of 1/250, got my flash settings right for the subject (I started at 1/4, but had to bump up to 1/2), then I lowered the shutter till the background was the brightness I wanted.

I sat Agust in such a position to put him in line with the leading lines of the telephone poles. This would compositionally balance the image and give something else to look at in the background, at a place of power. Unfortunately it left grass in the scene. Originally it was very bright, yellow, and distracting. I just used Lightroom 2's new adjustment brush to quickly darken, green-ify, and reduce contrast, so that it could be there as another layer of foreground, but not be as distracting. I also added green to the sky, pinked up the sun poking through, and made a mask for Agust's face. I used that mask to de-saturate a little, bump exposure, contrast, clarity, and sharpness. I do that often now on faces to make sure they are the most clear and attention drawing element of the scene.

Headshot

The last type of shot I did on this particular shoot was the headshot. I like doing horizontal headshots and including a bit of environment.

Settings:
1 Vivitar 285hv + moris slave flash velcroed to top
Both flashes full power (GN of 144, bare 285hv is GN of 120),
at normal telephoto setting,
into silver bounce umbrella,
with white nylon diffuser on front,
light stand was at 2 meters height,
light was .5 meters in front of subject and .5 meters to the right of the subject,
aimed directly at face.

I wanted an extremely soft light, which is the most flattering light. The dark environment would give me rich shadows with a bit of blue cast. Because the main light was so bright, in order to allow in background light, I had to slow the shutter to 1/13 of a second. This worked great to show his hair in motion from the wind, and I think adds a lot to the portrait. It feels like it's on the coast, with the lighthouse, ocean breeze running through the hair. I also didn't use a gel at all, to keep the light very neutral. I wanted the focus to be on his face and features, rather than the color. If I would have gelled at all, I would have used a 1/8 cut CTblue to match the environment. I was lucky in that the glasses didn't pick up any of the flash at this angle.

This shot was a happy, on-location accident, that I will repeat to fuller affect in the future. I love the trail from the hair, and the feeling it gives. The flash's intensity freezes the subject completely, eliminating the need for a tripod or steady hands.

To expound on this further. The sensor is taking in light the entire time the shutter is open. Normally this means you have to keep a fast enough shutter to prevent hand, or subject movement, around 1/60 or faster depending on subject movement speed, lens mm, etc. When using a flash though, the flash is only "on" for a fraction of a second. My vivitar's are around 1/4000 of a second or so, depending on the power (the higher the power, the shorter the duration, as you power down, they get faster). This means that any object that the flash is illuminating, will only have light coming from it for that fraction. It essentially makes the shutter speed of that object, the speed of the flash, freezing it in time.

This is why his hair is blurry (it was moving the entire 1/13 of a second, blacking out the brighter sky wherever it blew), and the face is crisp and sharp (it was only illuminated when the flash was on)

More natural light

While on vacation, I infrequently bothered with my flash equipment. I was always on the look out for nice lighting for a portrait session. The above photo was one such time. The setting sun to the right provided a nice orange colored fill light on the right side of his face, and the soft cloudy sky provided a blueish rim light on the left side of his face. I just had to figure out a good rotation of the subject, and then my placement in relation, to best take advantage of the lighting. I normally hold up my hand, and rotate around it till I see the lighting hitting my hand in the way I would want it to hit a face. (the light, not my hand)

In this case I thought the setting sunlight was a more flattering shade, so I used it as the fill, and rotated Agust until it hit a good portion of his face. I then moved from left to right, to get the angle of him that I wanted. It was fast and painless, but a very nice soft light, with good color contrast.



Here is another example of a naturally occurring flattering portrait light. This is a mausoleum in Hollywood Cemetery (Richmond, Virginia). There is a door behind the camera, of the same size and shape of the far door you can see behind me in the photo. This let's in a nice directional, soft light, but the darkness of the interior kills the rest of the light. This way you get lit surfaces facing the window, and dark shadows on surfaces facing away. You can see the shadow from the mausoleum walls on the right side of my face. In addition to the lighting, the dark walls with bright window provide a framing element to bring the eye to the subject's face. Good environmental portraiture will have interesting elements surrounding the subject, but they won't steal focus from the main attraction.

Look for directional natural light sources for flattering portraits. Look for framing elements. Look for contrasting colors in your light sources. When you search for good natural light, it can give ideas for cooking your own lighting setups later.

More found light portraits:

Sunset with small softbox

Settings:
1 Vivitar 285hv
set to 1/16 power,
at telephoto zoom setting,
through Lumiquest softbox II,
light stand was at 2 meters height,
light was even with camera, and just outside frame right,
aimed directly at subject's face.

Sunset photos are easy and produce very pleasing results. This portrait, while not all that exciting, demonstrates the use of the small softbox when moved in close. I feel from this example that the small softbox is a bit too harsh still to produce a good main light, if the ambient is too dark (like in this example) However I like the falloff it produces. If I were to do this shot again, I'd most likely use my silver umbrella, and block off the bottom portion to get the same falloff. However as a softer than barebulb fill, or in a lighting situation where there is more ambient, this light-mod will work well.

There was a much hotter specular on his forehead and cheeks, but I reduced it in photoshop by "select by color" using white, and reducing the feathering till I only had the highlights. Then I used levels to reduce the brightness, giving it a softer look. I opened up the shadows with the fill light slider in lightroom. Before these two adjustments, the lighting on the face was more severe, and less flattering.

Beach portraits

This past few weeks I've been in the US, specifically to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. I took my camera and lighting gear with me, and managed not to take any scenery photos, but lots of portraits. I loved how the fading sun gave me lots of interesting texture in the clouds, and we had a wrap around porch on the 3rd floor, which gave me a vantage point to get plenty of sky and a bit of beach houses.

I wanted to do some full body portraits, showing the beach setting, the cloudy sky, and provide a bit of falloff to the light so that everything wasn't lit evenly. It was also just a chance to experiment more with lighting and using my new flash equipment (Honl honeycomb grid).

Settings:
2 Vivitar 285hv
Main set to full power,
at telephoto zoom setting (to keep the light only on the subject)
Rim set to 1/4 power,
through 1/2 CTBlue gel,
through Dave-Honl 1/8" grid-spot,
Full zoom setting
Main light stand was at 2.5 meters height, rim was set on the balcony rail (about 1.2 meters high)
Main light was even with camera to the left of the subject, just outside of the frame
Rim was even with subject, 2 meters to the right of subject,
Rim light was aimed at his head, main light aimed directly at the subject.

Click through this setup shot to see notes over the flash heads.



I started originally with a sunset red gel over the flash, but it proved to be too strong, so I removed it. In hindsight, I wish I'd put on a 1/4 CTOrange gel on the main flash to warm everything a bit. Notice how in the setup shot, you can see how using the telephoto setting keeps the light only on the subject and feathers nicely off into the wooden balcony? I like the setting, but next time I'll aim up a bit more so that it feathers his body a bit. On all the subjects, the lower body received too much flash and removed focus from the face. Aiming the flash up a bit would give me more natural feathering of the light.

One thing I really liked was the Honl Honeycomb grid. I'm not a fanatic about keeping my strobe clean from velcro, so I forewent the speed strap, and just attached two velcro strips to my flash head. This cut down on the cost of the grid. The grid allows me to keep the light in a very tight, laser beam like area. In these portraits it was used to keep the 1/4 powered blue fill on just the face. Click through to the larger version to see it in detail.



This shoot however has convinced me that I need a small softbox for when I want to soften the light just a bit, or for times when an umbrella would blow over for sure (a real problem in Iceland where it's always windy).

Full beach portrait set
A few more examples:



My next post will show my new DIY umbrella mod. I'm building a white diffuser for my silver bounce umbrella. It's inspired by the 60" softliter that I purchased. The softliter is far too heavy and bulky for my taste, so it sits back in the states in my dad's lighting kit. The best part about it was the flat white surface. It's the best of both a silver and white umbrella.

Also, a request. Will anyone who knows of a university that teaches all in English, has a 3d art and photography degree, and is not located in the US, or the UK, please contact me via email?

Dual flashes in the fading sunlight

A friend of mine, Oddur, and I decided to do a shoot out in the fading sun this weekend. This was taken around 8:30 and the sun was still a ways off from setting, but the clouds gave us a really nice backdrop to work with. We started against a nice graffiti-ed wall, but I spotted a spool of electrical cable that I thought could make a neat stand against the sky.

Here is how the scene looks with no flashes:



I wanted the sun and sky to be in the background, but that is where the lightsource is, which means to light up my foreground subject, I need to use some flashes. I decided to use two, one for front fill, and one for rim light.

Settings:
2 Vivitar 285hv
Main set to full power with,
1/8 CTOrange gel
Rim set to 1/4 power with,
1/2 Window Blue gel
Full zoom setting on both
Main light stand was at 2.5 meters, rim was at 2 meters
Main light was even with camera, 3 meters to the right and 2 meters forward from model
Rim was even with subject, 3 meters to the left
Both were aimed directly at the subject

Here is the setup shot, click through to flickr for the notes over each flash and larger image:



In order to control the sky brightness even more, I used a 8 stop Graduated Neutral density filter, tilted, to darken the sky in the upper left, but not reach the subject. I wanted a lot of sky, and to show the interesting wooden spool he was shooting on, which meant I needed my 10-20mm lens. These were shot mostly around 12-20mm to avoid too much distortion. I kept the shutter speed at 1/250 in order to bring the sky brightness down, and since the main flash was working at full power, I had to keep the aperture fairly wide at the lens maximum (which changes as you zoom, so it's between f/4 and f/5.6 for the set) in order to let in enough flash. If I'd moved the flash in closer, I could have stopped down the lens a bit. Luckily the lens is still fairly sharp wide open. My biggest regret is not having an assistant to hold the lightstand. it was quite windy and an umbrella would have blown my stand over. I can brace the bottom, but the wind was so strong it would have bent or snapped the lightstand. That's why both flashes are bare. If I'd had assistants I would have put a white shoot through umbrella on the main light, and a silver bounce umbrella on the rim light to increase the light size and soften it a bit.

Here is the final result:



And since I was so excited about this setup, I switched places with Oddur and had him snap a few of me:



Click through for the whole set

Agust in the sunset

Loving how the sun stays up till 11 PM here right now.

Last night I went rollerblading along the coast road in Seltjarnarnes (it's the tip of the peninsula that Reykjavik, our capital, is on) and the light and blowing grass was just breathtaking. I knew the lighting was just right for some photography. I raced home, told my roommate to get dressed and head out with me so I could photograph him and get some practice and possibly nice images. My bag was mostly packed, but I had to throw a few things in, unplug some things charging, and we hopped in the car.

When we parked and headed out, I saw that the blowing grass would be nice for a shot as well. I took a few sans flash just to experiment.


After those, I had him sit down near some small fishing net drying racks with tall grass around. This would give me lots of interesting foreground and background elements. I used a 28mm lens to get some wider angle full body stuff, while not having to be too far away.

Settings:
1 Vivitar 285hv
set to 1/32 power
3/4 CTOrange gel
Full zoom setting
Light stands at .5 meter height
3 meters to subject left, 2 meters in front of subject.
Aimed toward the subject, slightly up so not to spill on the ground.

I set my shutter speed to 1/200 and aperture to 3.2, with iso at 200. I set my vivitar 285hv to 1/8 power (it's been hacked to allow 12 full stops of power) at camera left about 1.5 meters to the left and 1.5 meters in front of the model, essentially at a 45 degree angle. A few test shots showed that with the gorgeous orange sunlight as rim, the plain flash appeared too blue. I popped on a 3/4 CTOrange, and angled the flash up a bit so it would feather his body and not touch the grass or ground. The flash was also too powerful so I knocked it down to 1/32 to give me a nice ratio between the rim light (sun) and the fill (CTOed flash) I opened the shutter up to 1/125 to let in a bit more background light as well.

Here are the resulting images.



And a closeup, showing that since the cross lighting was in place, I could have my model move and rotate his head freely while maintaining good details and volumes.



My only regret is that I wish I would have been more aware of the background net stand merging with his head, and have him move a bit to the right or left so that it was a bit separated.

Full set can be seen here: www.flickr.com/photos/mr_chompers/sets/72157605435360046/

Post processing was fairly basic. The sky was originally light blue. I used Lightroom's selective color editing to darken it a bit, shift it over to red for a slight purple hue, and saturate it a bit more heavily. I warmed the entire image's White Balance slightly, and then to counter that, I used the selective color editing to make the greens (which is the shadow area of the grass) to be bluer, and more saturated. This gives the illusion that all the light was warmer than it was in real life. A slight vignette to keep your eyes in the frame on top of the 28mm's natural slight vignette, and some small contrast, black point adjustment and clarity, with a bump in vibrance finished it off. I use the Lightroom/mogrify/flickr uploader to sharpen the final 1024x768 uploaded image so that it's not too soft with a radius of .2