[Rupert]

My Tuesday shooting day was more or less a disaster.....I won't even go into all the details of the very dumb mistakes I made, even a beginner would not have made some of them. I underexposed most of what I shot, knocked the diopter way off by accident and spent an hour blaming the camera for "going bad" until I discovered the real problem, and had only one Model of four show up......the other three ended up having to work.
Still....we had Pizza, Hot Wings, drinks and lots of fun! Wish you guys were there to guide me...or even just to laugh at my bungling today.

Shelby.....She is always there!
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A B/W I sort of liked.....not too good with B/W, but I like a lot of them I see here.
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Guys, I would like to tell you that I will be better next week, and I will honestly try, but if I don't get more serious, I may just be a lost cause.......still, there are the lovely girls, and the Pizza!
Best Regards!
Rupert

[stewh]

I do prefer the B&W image...provocative. Nice work IMHO.

have fun

[Rupert]

Thanks Stewh, I like the BW myself, but think it could be processed better. Fun......always!
Some over at FLickr liked this one better than the ones I posted here....it is more "natural Shelby" for sure, and it prints very nicely. Hair light failed to fire, but otherwise I like the tone of it.
Best Regards & Happy Thanksgiving to you!
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[Ash]

Rupert, these are OK but there are small things that will make a big difference in the results.
First of all, the lighting: try to avoid harsh axial (or near-front) flash - it washes out texture and doesn't flatter the models. Similarly having 2 lights to cover the whole face works OK but does not permit the tonal gradations that enhance the look of portraits. You may even find one diffused flash at top left or top-right might do the job quite adequately.

These are also such tight crops focusing on her face, her pose is everything - try to have her relax and be natural. She appears to be putting in too much effort in the pose here.

Hope this helps.

[Rupert]

Thanks Ash, I don't always agree with you, but even when I don't, I'm pretty confident you are right. In this case I already know I have a long way to go in learning the lighting...I play around some and sometimes it works, sometimes not. I think I may be a while in getting the look you speak of....although I agree a softer light with more texture and tonal graduations should be my goal.
As always, your comments are greatly appreciated! Here is a fun shot just for you!
Best Regards!

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[Ash]

Well this last one is quite nicely done Rupert.
The lighting still may be a little flat, not bringing out much texture in her pretty face, but the setup looks good overall.
She's posed beautifully but I'm concerned about OH&S - balancing like that on a stool looks shaky...

With a little more separation from the black background and perhaps a stop or so less depth of field, the creases in the background may be less obvious. And that nail polish... has to go.

[Rupert]

Thanks again Ash.....I did a little better this time on the backgrounds, but apparently, I am still too close? Less DOF....I'll write that down, it makes sense.
Not to worry...she is extremely agile.....me, I would have a broken neck!

I'll let Shelby contemplate your advice here.....processing could be better, but that is not her fault!
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Best Regards! & Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!

[ramair455]

Nice effort Rupert. You might watch those "angles" when doing those tighter headshots. Also, I think you should ditch the "classic portraiture" multi-lighting scemes and use one light/reflector with a light colored background.

[Ash]

She looks fine and so does your processing. Your last image shows a much better controlled background - looks like you moved in closer to her and innately got yourself a thinner DoF. So standing further away from Shelby makes the distance of the background to her a lot closer relative to the camera, and thus comes out sharper in the image for the same aperture setting (hope that ramble made sense).

So now as ramair suggests, it's the angles and simplicity of lighting that'll bring some big gains here. Oh and another thing, Shelby could do with some lip balm - must be pretty dry down there in TX.

[clark]

are you using portrait pro to retouch these? if so, don't bother- they look too 'smooth'


also, are you lightening up the eyes? if so, I think you're doing it too much, if not, then she must have radio active eyes or something...


as for lighting, try butterfly lighting- I think it would work really well on her. A single light source in front of the model and angled up 45 degrees so the shadows fall under the cheekbones and under the nose. Then use a reflector (or another light) to add the hair light once you've got the main light down. This makes for a really dramatic photo if shot from straight on, but once you've got the lighting set up, you can shoot from straight on to a 45 degree angle and find the perfect position for the lights, I personally prefer the light at about 20 degrees off centre and the model 3/4 to camera


.......x
..... /
... /
..0....C

0 is the light, x is the subject and C is camera

I shot this to demostrate, f1.8- it's not true butterfly lighting but it shows what kind of things can be done with 1 light and a reflector, I sometimes use the reflector to simulate the key light




I think your pictures suffer from an excess of light, I think you'd do well to get back to basics with 1 flash, maybe a reflector and a model on location

[Rupert]

Thanks Clark, I wrote that down in my little Black Book of "tips" and will try it next Tuesday. I am close to getting the results I personally want (at times) but do agree that I need softer lighting and better texture.......I think Ash said it best.

This is a lot more complicated than most realize, certainly more than I ever realized. I thought that if you buy a couple of strobes, turn them on and shoot.....Magic! You have a shot! Not so, is it? LOL!

Yes, the Portrait Pro is a little over the top but don't overlook what the girls like, and they love the smooth look it gives with little trace of flaws and imperfections. Got to keep those girls happy with a few of them or I will be back to shooting Squirrels! LOL!

I also recognize another factor at play in this type of shooting....or any other for that matter.....we all seem to have different tastes in what we want to see. We don't all desire the same "look" and what one calls perfection, another calls severely flawed. Not different than some that prefer avocados ( I love them) and some that don't ( my Mom hates them). So in the end, we shoot for the result that pleases us best and hope it pleases a majority of others too.....sometimes yes, sometimes no!

I will be getting the K5 soon, so all this may be irrelevant...I am reading over on the K5 Forum that it has poor resolution/sharpness, so my shots with it may not even be recognizable here in a short time. I will have to give a written description of how the girls looked when I shot them, or a little thumbnail of them shot with my K20D as a guide to what I will be posting. I am hoping a poor K5 owner, that believes what he has read over ther, instead of his own eyes, will see this and PM me an offer to dump off his K5 to me at a bargain price?

Best Regards! & Thanks for the tips.......hope you had a Great Thanksgiving too!

BTW-This is one of my personal favorites from last Tuesday....more natural, lighting is still a little too harsh, and my hair light failed to fire...but still, I do like it. I think I am of the school that says the subject and pose makes up for a lot of other shortcomings ....anyhow, it sounds good! LOL!
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[clark]

Yes, the Portrait Pro is a little over the top but don't overlook what the girls like, and they love the smooth look it gives with little trace of flaws and imperfections. Got to keep those girls happy with a few of them or I will be back to shooting Squirrels! LOL!

shooting at large apertures helps with this too, when you're shooting at f7.1 and you're retouching the skin, you need to be top of your game to make anything that isn't 'fake' looking, especially when the lighting is so flat there's nothing to hide behind. It's so hard to get the balance right, especially as you get tunnel vision- I've done professional retouching work for years and I still over/under retouch sometimes. It helps having an art director standing over you telling you when to stop.

Retouching is a lot more than just blurring the skin or pushing a button on photo pro, you need to spend time to judiciously blend the tones and repaint the surface. Here is another tip, always keep a copy of the original file on top of the layer stack, do all the retouching to perfection, then step it off to about 50-70%. Continue to work on the image and periodically check your image against the unretouched image to see how far you've come, if necessary blend some of the original file back into the retouch. Also it helps to run a 'high pass' filter on the unretouched layer to get a grayscale 'bump map', you can then use this in overlay mode to add back in the bumps and imperfections to the 'smooth' skin

i'd also recommend more makeup, thick foundation. This is essential because the strobe light scatters under the surface of the skin, making all the red veins show up. Using makeup means the light bounces straight off so naturally you get a smoother image. She doesn't look like she wears much make up, but try it

If you thought lighting was tricky- retouching is another PITA, not so easy is it this photography mallarky

[ramair455]

Rupert one of the issues you are dealing with in "skin retouch" is your model has freckles. Retouching faces with freckles can be very tedious. If you use PP for removing freckles instead of pre-shoot (makeup) you will always end up with fake looking retouched skin.

When we shoot girls with freckles, it is decided before shooting if freckles will show or not.

Oh...for some reason, most girls hate their freckles showing in these type of pics...which also leads to too much PP to keep them happy.

[Ash]

Well Rupert, this last image is indeed the nicest/sweetest.
The freckles define who she is and ought to only be made subtle with makeup rather than removed as in the image before. I also attest that it's both easier and better in terms of results to do the makeup beforehand rather than retouch afterwards.

[Rupert]

You guys are giving me a lot of information, I just hope some of it will stick in my brain and lead me to improved results over time. As I have stated before, this is pretty complicated work and those that have mastered it are deserving of my praise...and have it!

Ash, I do like the more natural look, and that last one has to be one of my favorites. It is the Shelby I know.....

So is this one....
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Best Regards!