'Studio' Portraits with......you know who!

ScarySquirrel

ScarySquirrel

ScarySquirrel

Soldato
Joined
13 Jan 2004
Posts
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Location
South East
First of all, yes, it is Helen again.....and no, I will not get bored of taking photos of her.

We've been planning a shoot like this for AGES now, and today we finally got round to doing it. The plan was for her to do some nice makeup, and for me to take some simple head shots with a 2 light setup. I wanted to go for a 'fashion editorial' style, the kind of thing you might see in Vogue or something, hence the processing (some are bordering on over exposed, but on my monitor I have kept them just within the limits :)). I know it won't be to everyone's tastes, but it is the look I was after so I am very pleased with them.

I've got more to go through, but here is a selection of some of the ones I have processed so far.







Finally, the very simple two light setup at my Mum's house
helenmakeup159.jpg
 
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I like them. The pose is a little odd in 5 but overal I think they look great.

What did you do to the colour on shot 3? Her skin and lipstick look colder.
 
Nice pics - i found her blending in to the wall too much.

I was wondering if you could talk me through what your intention with the lighting setup was. I am a complete noob I warn you but from what I have read I think i would have gone for the softbox on her face for more diffuse lighting and the umbrella or no diffuser at all even on her hair for more contrasty light. Actually i thought the classic fashion style was butterfly lighting which has one light directly in front and above the model causing a butterfly shadow under his/her nose. Worth googling if you are not aware of it.

I should add that your photo's are better than any i have ever taken lol :)
 
good job, but as above, she blends into the wall too much for me, and overall there isn't enough contrast.
 
I think they are all superb, shot 1 though is exceptional and is very much professional quality stuff :)
 
Thanks all. I know the processing won't be to everyone's tastes as mentioned, but I like the fact she kind of blends in with the wall. I find the more you look at it the more contrast you notice.

I'm planning to go through them again with a different style of processing once I have finished a set with this style, so I'll post them up when they're done :)

dubcat said:
Nice pics - i found her blending in to the wall too much.

I was wondering if you could talk me through what your intention with the lighting setup was. I am a complete noob I warn you but from what I have read I think i would have gone for the softbox on her face for more diffuse lighting and the umbrella or no diffuser at all even on her hair for more contrasty light. Actually i thought the classic fashion style was butterfly lighting which has one light directly in front and above the model causing a butterfly shadow under his/her nose. Worth googling if you are not aware of it.

I should add that your photo's are better than any i have ever taken lol :)
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My intention was to eliminate 95% of shadows on the face, with enough light fall off to give a greyish background. The reason the background isn't grey in the final shots is because of the processing, in which I added a slight warm tone to the images.

In hindsight you're probably right, the umbrella high front probably would have achieved the above, leaving the softbox free to use elsewhere.

The_Abyss said:
I like them. The pose is a little odd in 5 but overal I think they look great.

What did you do to the colour on shot 3? Her skin and lipstick look colder.
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Not sure to be honest. It might just be a mistake on my part, as I have altered the colour of her lips slightly in all, so I may have just done it slightly differently on no. 3 by accident.
 
If you were going for a light background, then you should have set up one of the flashes behind her.
All it needs is to overexpose the background by 2 or 3 stops.
 
I didn't want a white background though. I actually got the background exactly as I wanted. If I want more separation I just need to work a bit more on the processing.
 
Probably worth mentioning that on my monitor things seems to come out a bit darker, despite brightness being at 100, so I wonder whether that is why people think she blends too much :confused:

EDIT:

Hmmm, ok, I just did another one, but made sure I kept a bit more definition to separate her from the background a tad more, I think it works better, so I'll probably go over all of the above again!

 
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These are great, your getting better and better with every shoot.
I find the expression in 5 a bit strange, but i like the lighting in all.
I dont think there is a massive issue with her blending into the back ground, at least not on my monitor. Maybe just darken her skin tone a fraction to add some contrast?

Excellent shots well done.
 
TalkPhotography can be pretty harsh but honest from what I've seen - same here. Have to agree with the background but seasoned professionals do this all the time and it still irritates me haha.

4 and 5 (if only it was a tad darker) look great, even on my particularly bright monitor.
 
fluffmct said:
TalkPhotography can be pretty harsh but honest from what I've seen - same here. Have to agree with the background but seasoned professionals do this all the time and it still irritates me haha.

4 and 5 (if only it was a tad darker) look great, even on my particularly bright monitor.
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Well the reason I said that is because on TP I have only had positive comments :p

I've checked them again on my work monitor, and they are just verging on too bright in places. I might go over them again and bring a bit more definition to a few of them. Having said that, one of the reasons I like them is because of the blend with the background.

On the monitors I have used you can still see where she ends and the background begins, it is just quite subtle due to the colouring.
 
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