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.

kiril_portraits

Settings: The background was shot separately with ambient about 2 stops below neutral grey for a dark feel and still allowing the lamps to not blow out. In the subject's image, Ambient is 1 stop below neutral grey, and flash is 1.5 stops above neutral grey.

I've posted the original setting, and a closeup of this shot for the previous masking tricks post, but here is the full image.

Having scouted the door location, I knew I wanted to use a male model, in a dress coat. I asked around for my friends, trying to find someone with a look I could use, who also owned a dress jacket with collars that could be held up. I used google images of pea coats and chesterfields when asking people if they owned what I was after.

If I had the full budget of a paid shoot, I would have scouted for a Hugo Boss grey or black double breasted pea coat. I also wanted a double layered undershirt, something white with a low V-neck showing the upper pectorals, and then a button down blue shirt. However when putting together a shoot with a budget of zero monies, you work with what you have.

We arrived at the location, and I set up while the model changed into the wardrobe (it was far too hot out to bicycle there already dressed). I had already scouted the location, so I knew I was going to use my 35mm lens, I knew about where I'd stand as well. The evening wasn't dim enough yet for them to have turned on the lamps, but in hind sight it worked well, because the ambient provided a nice fill on his face on the non flash side that would have been lacking if it was closer to dark.



Settings: Ambient is one stop below neutral grey. Flash is 1.5 stops above neutral grey.

In this photo you can see what the ambient levels were like at the time of the shooting. The flash in all these images is in a 30x40 cm softbox with a 20 degree grid. In this image, it is coming from camera left, through a fabric grid to keep the light only on his face, and not on the door or his knee. You'll notice in all the images the flash is set to a narrow lighting pattern, where the flash hits the front of his face, but leaves the side of the face we can see in shadow. I like this lighting pattern best for how it reveals facial details.



Settings: The background was shot separately with ambient about 2 stops below neutral grey for a dark feel and still allowing the lamps to not blow out. In the subject's image, Ambient is 1 stop below neutral grey, and flash is 1.5 stops above neutral grey.

This image uses the same settings as the first, I've just moved the subject further back, and gotten down on my knees instead of taking at eye level. The background was composited in. The bricks on the ground are from the subject's image, and the background plate had to be extended as it wasn't wide enough. I used photoshops content aware resizing to extend the brick walls without ruining the windows or the doorway. Then I did some reshaping of the jacket, as it was too loose, and then used dodge and burn to give him a bit more obvious musculature. I also slimmed the waist a bit. The hardest part was getting the ambient levels of the subject to match the background, as well as the color toning. The ambient was still quite neutral, whereas on the background plate it had a ton of blue and a bit of purple in the shadows. I used an exposure layer with lots of masking to darken the non flash lit parts to match. Then I used a color balance and a photo filter to tone the ambient to match the background. In the top image, I used Photoshop's Lens Blur filter to add depth of field to the background so that the subject would stand out a bit more.

Before and After:

upcoming_shoot

I did a location scout tonight. I've got a pretty good idea now of what subject I want, how they should pose, and what kind of lighting I'll use. I'm pretty excited.

Before shot:



after:



I removed all the modern bits, the plaques and metal pipes and trashcan. Not only to make it look more timeless, but also to keep the visual attention up near the lights, where the subject's head will be. It was fairly easy, not too much original cloning. I just duplicated the layer and flipped it horizontally, then hid it all with a mask, and revealed it where the details I didn't want would be. That got rid of 90% of the stuff, then I just needed to clone out a few details, which I did on a new layer, so I could darken and color correct the cloned bits so they would match the background perfectly. I also did some selective sharpening to bring out the grit and details on the bricks and cobblestone, but left it off of any areas that looked too overcooked (mainly around the lights and the window panes).

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!

Triple light!

A friend of mine asked me to take some portraits out near Gróto, here in Iceland. I had an idea for a lighting setup right away, but I would need to borrow a third light for it. Luckily a friend of mine has the same setup as I do (vivitar 285hv with skyports) so I asked him if I could borrow it.

Here is the setup diagram (this is the same 3D view, twice. Top version is from the front, bottom version is from above):


Settings:
3 Vivitar 285hv
2 rim lights at 1/4 power,
at telephoto zoom setting,
through 1/2 CTBlue gels,
1 main light at 1/16 power,
at telephoto zoom setting,
through 1/4 CTOrange gel,
through Lumiquest softbox II,
rim light stands were at 1.5 meters height,
light was slightly behind subject, and 3 meters to the sides of the subject, just outside of the frame,
aimed a bit up to feather downward,
main light on boom arm held by assistant,
1 meter above face and in the front.

I wanted an extremely wide view, with rim light on either side. I knew this would make the subject pop, but I didn't want to take it too extreme. I started at 1/16 power on the rim lights, but it didn't show up quite enough, so I popped them to 1/4 (I've only hacked one of them, so I only have 1/8 on a single flash, out of the box, 285hvs don't have 1/8 power). The blue is to unify with the coldish color of the background.

The main was a bit harder, as it needed to be held. Without an assistant, this would have been near impossible. There would have been a light stand in the scene, and it was far too windy for a large C-stand. I put the lumiquest softbox so the light wouldn't be too harsh, and a 1/4 CTOrange gel. Not only is warmer light more flattering for portraits, but it would contrast well with the coldness of the rest of the scene, showing exactly where the focus point is. I left this main flash at 1/16 as I knew that since it was much closer, it would be strong enough. This was also my hacked flash, so I could have gone as low as 1/1024 if I needed to. In hindsight, I wish I would have tried a shot or two at 1/32 or 1/64.

For post processing on the above shot, I made a custom mask for the clouds and adjusted the curves to get a bit more funky sky color and definition.

This was a lot of fun having access to a third flash, and I might have to add a third flash to my kit soon. There are several other photos from this shoot, but they will be in tomorrow's post.

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?

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