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Home > TME Community > Features > The Daily Critique > Blake from Massachusetts - February 10, 2009
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Blake from Massachusetts - February 10, 2009
Started February 10, 2009 @ 12:01am by Kel
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Kel
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Posts: 246 |
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| Blake from Massachusetts - February 10, 2009 | February 10, 2009 @ 12:01am | In today’s critique Craig discusses a beautiful in studio portrait. Craig talks about quality of light and discusses the lighting concepts of key light, fill light and accent light. Craig talks about controlling light and shadow and especially specularity relative to the subject matter and message being conveyed. Craig also discusses the soft focus filter effect, quality of line, rhythm, and visual unity.
Click here to view the video.
"There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer." ~Ansel Adams | My Blog |
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Last Edit: February 10, 2009 @ 10:22am by Craig | |
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| Hi Contrast | February 10, 2009 @ 7:22am | Blake,
Here's to the courageous for shooting a hi contrast portrait. Obviously difficult to pull off, especially for women, you have done a great job. I believe so many people use softboxes precisely bc hi contr is so diffficult. And to use a cross-lighting effect on a woman is even more courageous, the total effect works wonderfully.
As a retoucher, I think the hi contrast effect is most effective when one consciously tries not to answer all the questions. Craig's idea of using a single key light is a good one, shifting from what is generally even lighting to the non-uniform. Right now, the image is somewhere in the middle: soft even lighting for most of the image, highlights on selected areas, and deep shadows merging the dress and hair. One variant would have been to really push how dark you can make one side of the face (which would have also required a bg lite for separation). When done well and especially on beautiful people, this technique really keeps the viewer with the image, bc they want to look for detail - filling in answers where the photo leaves them wanting.
Craig is clearly baiting me with his comment about blurring and surreal beauty, so here goes. I am a fan of whatever art suits one's fancy. That said, the dreamy effect could also have been achieved by using a new layer filled to 50% gray and set to Overlay blending mode. Then using a low opacity (~3%) brush, selectively paint in black and white tones to complement your lighting setup. This technqiue increases overall contrast by diminishing mid-tone contrast, which ultimately has an effect not dissimilar from blurring without removing detail. Personally, I use this technique bc (at least in my opinion bc) it tends to maintain a truer sense of reality.
(Okay Craig, here comes my soapbox...) Photog, like any art form, reaches its broadest appeal when it speaks to the masses (or at least sections of the masses). It is my opinion that our culture is shifting as we speak to a more grounded society, in part driven by things like our economy. Even as photog'ers tend to be highly technique driven artists, we swim in a sea of culture. As the cog in the overall cultural wheel that supplies the society with visual representations of itself, we are chartered with sensing trends just before the broader society recognizes and adopts those trends. So whereas I believe the society is shifting to a more grounded approach, I think those images which retain the strongest sense of beauty without compromising reality will be considered the most effective. Inevitably, our culture will shift again and as artists, we will eventually shift as well. (Craig, is that enough soapbox??)
Blake, back to you... Great photo, great lighting, beautiful model, and great courage to shoot hi contrast, cross-lit portraits.
Rick |
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Last Edit: February 10, 2009 @ 7:38am by Guest | |
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Flo
Posts: 17,472 |
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| February 10, 2009 @ 7:54am | Blake, this is a very beautiful portrait. I love her expression, the angle of her face and body and arms - I do agree with what Craig said about the hand - there are "fingers" up in image-right, the top of her hair, that would echo her fingers on her arm.
I like the darkening of the upper left background corner. I like the addition of the right-image hair highlight or rimlight that Craig added - but -
only if he'd also toned down the hot spot on her right cheek bone. To my eyes, this large hot spot conflicts with the reality of a light that would create such a hot light on the rim of her air - this is a directional light opposite to the bright spot on her cheek. Therefore, it looked too artificial to me for my eyes to accept it.
I would keep the lighting as Blake had positioned it, but to take care of that hot spot on her cheek, I'd try turning down the watts somewhat. I don't think I'd like a light over the camera that would take the place of the softbox to image left, like Craig suggested.
The idea of the fan blowing her hair just a bit is also a great idea. All in all, a very successful portrait.
Blake, if you have a Lensbaby, I'd like to see a portrait lit like this with the model posed like this shot with a Lensbaby!
You could also get a black nylon stocking and stretch it over the lens. This would give a soft focus effect. Or try a skin colored one, or even a white one, depending on which one gives you the soft effect plus color you want.
Thanks, Blake and Craig.
Flo
Flo - PPY
"May we live in peace without weeping. May our joy outline the lives we touch without ceasing. And may our love fill the world, angel wings beating." aziza
http://photos.tonebytone.com |
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Usha
Posts: 1,545 |
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| February 10, 2009 @ 8:17am | Wow, Loved the image and loved the critique. Whatever the personal preferences of people about high contrast, low contrast, soft focus or not......this critique helped me with the choices to think about and how to achieve the vision.
One question for blake...were both soft boxes at the same height? Wonder what would have happened if the one on camera right was a tad bit higher or lower?
Last one....I don't know what a soft focus filter is. What does it do? What is it used for. I don't recall talking about that filter too much on TME???
Again, thanks for a very informative critique.
Usha
Usha - PPY
http://www.ushavedula.com
http://ushav.posterous.com/ |
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Last Edit: February 10, 2009 @ 8:18am by Guest | |
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Craig
Administrator
Posts: 699 |
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| Thank you | February 10, 2009 @ 8:36am | Hi Rick, Flo, and Usha,
Thank you for being here. Rick and Flo.... great suggestions.
Usha.... the soft focus filter used to be a lot more popular before Photoshop made the possibilities for achieving the same effect much more controllable in terms of the intensity and quality of the effect and how it was applied to the image.
The filters typically were made of patterned glass (or plastic) that allowed a lot of light to go through the filter unaltered while diffracting some of the light creating an overlay of a soft out of focus "glow". The pattern on the glass essentially creates a similar effect as the fishnet stocking approach Flo mentions in her post. The black fishnet stocking stretched over the lens is a very famous Hollywood Cinema effect or look. In fact many digital filter and action makers have an action that mimics this effect.
The soft focus effect has been very popular in advertising and fashion photography (and Hollywood) and was where you used to see the effect most often. These effects have become more widely used in all areas of photography because they are more accessible now with digital editing......Craig
“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” -Soren Kierkegaard
“The secret of life…is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.” - Paulo Coelho, from The Alchemist
PPY
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Last Edit: February 10, 2009 @ 8:41am by Craig | |
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blakerobinson
Posts: 38 |
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| February 13, 2009 @ 11:42pm | Coming a bit late to the party here...
Great critique as always, and great image Blake.
Looking at this image, the one thing I would try is a different crop and put the left frame just at edge of the shoulder blade cutting through part of the back. It would remove some of the negative space behind, put the eye direction more on the main diagonal. But keep enough back to keep the suggestive element of the image. It would be more of a beauty crop than a portrait crop, but may simplify the overall image conceptually.
Jan
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Last Edit: February 13, 2009 @ 11:43pm by Guest | |
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blakerobinson
Posts: 38 |
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| February 16, 2009 @ 8:05pm | thanks for all these good comments and suggestions. as to where the lighting was placed, almost 90 degress to the line from camera to subject, and slightly above, angled down a bit.
one question about Craig's suggestion of a light over the camera -I wonder if I'd lose the whole high contrast effect. we'll try it.
I wish I had the luxury in the studio to stop after each shot, look closely at the image (I should probably be shooting tethered), then go back and make subtle adjustments. I tend to shoot a lot of pictures kind of on the fly, to keep the spontanaity - of the model and of me. but I know I could benefit from a more studied approach during the shoot.
for more images from this shoot, pls go to my website
www.blakerobinsonphotography.com
then models and actors, then "Muse"
website http://www.blakerobinsonphotography.com
blog
http://blakerobinsonphotography.wordpress.com
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blakerobinson
Posts: 38 |
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assignment
Community Assignment #53
Picture Window
Due Date: September 16, 2011 |
Have you heard about the Backyard Shots Photography Guide "Street Portraiture with CraigTanner"?
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