Kudos to you for stopping strangers in the street and asking to photograph them; that's the hardest part.Originally Posted by t0aster
Nice set of portraits.
Kudos to you for stopping strangers in the street and asking to photograph them; that's the hardest part.
Nice set of portraits.
Hi Ari! Yes! After a long wait!!! I'm very happy with it even though it's very heavy for me with my f.64! I have to bring it to my friends studio just to test the camera!
I'm not sure if the holders has leaks i have yet to test it. I'm suspecting that the leaks came from our DIY safe light. It seems that all the exposed sheets (4) has the same leaks.
Hopefully i could test it again soon! I'm very much happy with X-ray film it's like a practise to me for this format. Atleast i'll be aware of errors before going to the real film route..
The characteristic of this film is what i like the most.
Thanks for the kind words! I had a friend with me while I was doing these. She's completely extroverted to my complete introversion, couldn't have done it without her. I plan on doing more stranger portraits and due to schedule differences now I'll be out by myself so we'll see how that goes.
Very serious looking portraits, shot on Fuji HRT X-Ray 8x10.
I'm very curious about how people control hot spots on models when shooting with studio strobes. In these pictures I have used 2 beauty dishes (approx. 40cm size) at about 45 degrees to the model with 2 or 3 stops between them. The beauty dishes are quite close - maybe 1/2 a metre away.
I guess my options are:
different lighting setup
use a soft box
some sort of makeup on the model
Any suggestions?
Make up - Powder is used to put a matt finish on the skin to tame the hot spots.
Nice tones. I'd try one strobe (close with beauty dish) as close to inline with the camera as possible, as Mortensen described in "Pictorial Lighting". The bottom photo has two hotspots on the nose and two on the forehead, which could be made more natural with simpler lighting. One big softbox can also work, play around with it and a DSLR sometime.Very serious looking portraits, shot on Fuji HRT X-Ray 8x10.
I'm very curious about how people control hot spots on models when shooting with studio strobes. In these pictures I have used 2 beauty dishes (approx. 40cm size) at about 45 degrees to the model with 2 or 3 stops between them. The beauty dishes are quite close - maybe 1/2 a metre away.
I guess my options are:
different lighting setup
use a soft box
some sort of makeup on the model
Any suggestions?
Don't put a strobe on the camera side of the face. Use a bounce card for fill. As already been said, use one strobe.
Inverse square law. Unless you did insanely good job on makeup - specular highlights from close contrasty light source will give you nasty results. Which is why one of my teachers used to go in huge arguments with me, when i was all about portable strobes and idea of "oh you can just move source closer in".. Took me a while to understand he was right
8x10, 14 inch heliar, abrasion toning, textured screen (two actually - i got to make some new ones) , print.
Elementary by Sergei Rodionov, on Flickr
Looks like this will have to be divided into two segments as it is quite long. Sorry about that .
Okay friends, I am going to purposely step on the toes of more than a few people who have been taught some bad legends about light placement, so here goes.
MK, this is not directed at you as a criticism as I respect the efforts you are making here and the very strong start that you have, so please don't take offense at what I hope will be a good lesson derived from brilliant people who have taught me over more that two decades in my early career.
I don't mean to offend anyone by doing this, but I have seen so many "portraits" on here that came so close only to fall below par due to lack of good lighting. It is frustrating. I don't mean to set myself up as somebody who thinks they are the ultimate in lighting knowledge either, it's just that I've been very lucky to be taught by several true masters and I thank God for it, so I hope what I am about to state is of help, rather than just being critical. Ultimately, what they taught me was to actually SEE light while I was constructing the patterns of light for an image whether by using studio electronic flashes, or window light controlled with flags and reflectors, or outdoor light to be controlled by the wonders of subtractive lighting which is actually deconstructing the light. And by the way, I get upset with myself quite often at not paying proper attention to these subtleties the way that I was taught to do them so I fail often as well.
First, a question for MK.
Are your beauty dishes covered by diffusion socks? If not, they would be hugely helpful in softening and diffusing the light to help eliminate the ridges of highlight you are experiencing.
Now suggestions. Even though it is counter to the correct reasoning that moving lights back farther from the subject makes them smaller in relation to the subject and therefore more specular, it will be beneficial in that the glow you are getting on the ridges of the flesh relative to the flatness in the pockets or hollows because it flattens that distance within the skin surface.
Now a camera position and lens choice question.....nothing to do with lighting. What focal length lens did you use? It looks to be a short normal used much too close or a wide angle with the camera moved in to fill the frame. Either way, unless you intended to distort the face, may I suggest that you use a much longer lens, at least twice the normal focal length. Look at these and you see that the facial features loom forward and the ears regress far away from the features. In reality, the nose is about the same height as the ears or a bit less and here the ears are very tiny and the head is badly distorted. If that's on purpose, great. If it's not, your subject is not going to be happy. To cure this, choose a longer focal length and back that camera away from the face. Tradition calls for a focal length about double what is considered normal for your format.
Back to lighting, and here goes with my challenge to how most of us learned the legends of proper placement of the fill light. I will state right here that I welcome your responses, positive or negative to what I say here as my belief of what this gospel should be, but I ask that you do not challenge me unless and until you try what I say and prove to yourself either way what your preference is. By the way, this is not my original idea of this placement. It was derived from watching Dean Collins and a handful of other lighting masters in seminars and at their work and actually SEEING the light as they worked and recognizing where the lighting units needed to be placed to compliment the face or subject in the image instead of creating distractions.
Also, if you take a put up or shut up position toward what I say, I have to apologize that I can show only medium format work in portraiture so either visit my web site at www.cameraworksassociates.com or I can try to get permission from the moderators for a one time special pass on format used. Either way, you are welcome to critique what you see as you please. I don't expect anyone to agree with me based on just verbiage.
MK you have two main lights at work in these images, not a main and a fill. The reason is their placement, not their power, although they are too close to the same in intensity.
The correct usage of main and fill is quite simple, the fill light in a portrait has one position only. It is NOT on the side opposite the main, EVER! It is not on the side with the main or at least not as a rule although that is a tiny bit better! It is ALWAYS!!!! in line with the nose of the subject....PERIOD!
Why is that the accurate rule? It is very simple. If the fill light is on the side opposite the main (and especially if the exposure setting is too bright) it throws shadows from the nose into the the light areas created by the main light and creates god awful distractions and always widens the nose out of reality.
If it is placed on the same side as the main, much better, but it still may throw an extra edge to the shadow created by the main and distort that shape.
If it is in line with the nose (give or take a few inches), any extra shadows that might be created will fall directly into the same shadow created by the main and so they disappear.
Let's remind ourselves what the fill light is actually supposed to do. But, since it is ALWAYS a subordinate light in a set up, lets first define it's compliment, the main light or key light. Simply put, the key or main has one purpose which is to define the face visually by placing it (the light) so that it throws highlights and shadows where the photographer wants them to lie to display the face the way he or she sees it artistically.
The fill light has one and only one complimentary function and that is to raise the exposure value of the shadows into a printable "zone" on the negative or transparency and within that brightness choice, to place the level at which the photographer wants to set the contrast range for the final image. Period, end of story....that's all folks.
If that light is moved in such a way as to throw shadows of it's own, then it is no longer a fill light and you have created a second main light. Thus, it needs to be placed in line with the nose and set for it's proper exposure value.
(continued below)
"One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude." Carl Sandburg
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