Lighting excercise - High Key

So, I ll be writing two articles in the same week.. with my schedule, thats a first :). One reason I love studio work (although its my small living room and lights are just speed lights) is because I am a control freak.. :) In a good way that is. What I meant by that is that I am very picky about highlights and shadows, the mood of lighting, the pose etc...

The living area in my apartment is pretty small and hence doing low key is hard. So, I decided to try out some high key stuff first. Of course I did go to low key in the same shoot.. But that s for another post :D

Whats used in this set up were mainly cheap umbrellas as modifiers. My ever supporting Wife volunteered as the model for these experiments...  So got her ready for the shot and took these two high key shots (in two separate sittings to be honest). 

1. Lights - A simple one light setup. Location - A small bedroom. Type - Wraparound light. Gaze - into the camera. * White balance is a little off (towards yellow)

2. Lights - A simple two light setup. Location - A small living room. Type - Wraparound light. Background - Light colored wall. Gaze - Off camera

What both shots have in common and something I do always look at are "well lit eyes!". If you want a very pleasant shot, you need to have the eyes lit very well. Dark eyes usually gives out a grim look and is extremely unflattering to specially female subjects. The two shots above are different in where the eyes are looking towards... but they both give a pleasant feeling due to good light.

Would love to hear what you think about these.. and a big thank to my Wife for volunteering and helping me out as always. 


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Thanks
Akila. 

When do I resort to some post processing...

Lets get something straight first.. We all do some sharpening, contrast adjustments etc for at least most of our images.  So when I mean post processing here, I mean things that you have to resort to something like Photoshop to sort out properly. I myself is no more than a beginner in post processing compared to some of my fellow photographers. Part of the reason is that I believe highly on getting (or trying to get) things right in the camera itself. This had turned out very well for me over the years and enjoyed finishing my work with minimal time in front of the computer. Just like Zack used to say, "During a shoot if you think that you ll correct that later.... just slap yourself hard!".. Although I don't go that extreme, I rarely leave something for post work rather than getting it in camera.. (except for HDR, which I do very little of).

So needless to say, I v been using post processing for either correcting for foreseen situations or things I v missed during a shoot. Given below are some cases like that where I had to resort to those software to get the job done.

Example 1 - Happened during the shoot for the Western Software Eng brochure shoot. Even though we knew about what kind of a shot is needed, we had no specific requirements for what the model should be wearing. But after the shoot had been done and dusted, the lack of university colors (Purple) came up as an issue and had to fix this within a very short period of time by changing the color of her sweater...

Example 2 - This was more of an mistake I did during the boxing look lighting exercise. I thought I had all the details nailed during the shoot in the camera... But it was only after I posted it that someone replied "Your hands are too clean for you to be that sweaty" :(.... I was so shocked when I realized my mistake.. that I forgot to rub it against some food coloring or dirt (and make it B&W) to have solved this. The post processing fix I used it a very basic one.. but the fact I had to do something like that in post was a grim reminder of what we miss when we look through the view finder.

(Due to some formatting issues I had to make them small. Please click on them to bring the larger version up)

Would be great to hear when you had to resort to Photoshop in similar situations. Let me know if anyone needs to know the techniques used to get these things sorted out.

Please consider that all copyrights are reserved for all material on this blog and cannot be reproduced without a written consent from the author.

Btw, Seasonal greetings to all of you out there......

Thanks
Akila.

Catching something Cold for a change....

Its that time of the year when everything is covered in snow... Was driving one day and realized that the crystals are gorgeously formed in that particular snow fall. So came home, grabbed my gear and went out to catch a flake or two. Ended up doing exactly that in which I only caught two flakes on my gloves and shot them closeup.

Used a technique that can be categorized as light painting to get this one. Also had to make it a very short shoot as I hate the cold + One of my hands was freezing without the glove :)  One thing to note was that the structures were not perfect and had I stayed outside for much longer, I would have most probably caught a better crystal than this one... But my hate towards cold temperatures overcame the photographer in me as predicted :)... The biggest problem with these pics are that you need to be fast in shooting these. Therefore, I had my camera settings all figured out while I was still indoors and was able to shoot this as soon as the flake landed (almost). When I looked back on the series of shots I took of this, I could clearly see it melting away fast...

This below is the result of that 5 minute shoot.

Please consider that all copyrights are reserved for all material on this blog and cannot be reproduced without a written consent from the author.

Btw, Seasonal greetings to all my viewers...

Thanks
Akila.

Dramatic lighting excercise - Trying to make a normal guy look like a boxer

Not that I am into boxing or anything violent for that matter, but wanted to learn the art of creating/changing a personality with moody lighting.  So was incubating this idea for a while and when I told one of my colleagues, he suggested to make someone ordinary into a boxer. So, I basically took it in as a challenge and change myself into a boxer. This one was particularly harder since I had to be in front of the camera as opposed to behind it. Focusing was the hardest, since I had to physically move around to change the setup (and also had no reliable way of precisely standing at the same point), I left the camera on autofocus and used the flip lcd screen (live view) to position myself. Then used a cheap remote I bought through e-bay (for less than $10) to shoot the picture with a 2 sec delay. Pointing the remote without making the camera focus on my hands was a challenge at first though. But what took most time was getting the setup and angles right. One of the most important things to learn in a lighting setup is to set one light at a time. Even though I knew this, many times (including this time) I found myself over excited and getting messed up. Once that happens, simply turn off all the lights and start from a scratch.

Ones the setup was complete, I changed the outlook using simple day to day stuff to bring out a tough looking boxer :). Didn't really know technical poses for this sport, so went with a general one that easily can deliver a determined look. Had to play with the camera angle as well to get a leaning pose. What I learned about light in this whole excercise can be put into this following sentence -

"Whats important is not where the light hits.. but where it misses... "

Here s the result.. You can be the judge on whether this try was successful or not. Please let me know..

Please consider that all content are copyrighted and cannot be used without a written consent. 

Thanks
Akila.