Indoor portraits

[raffaelecapasso]

Hi there, it is my first post here.
I'm approaching LF photography and actually I'm wondering on how to make indoor portraits.

I use portra 160 film, so in the majority of cases the available exposure in a room at night or late afternoon for a F8 portrait will be around 2 seconds, and at morning my living room gives me half second at F5.6.
Even if my subject are perfectly immobile, seconds of exposure give me wavy images.

I just can't figure out how many photographers achieve perfectly lit photos with what seems to me natural light with people frozen!!

I tried to use my canon speedlight flash with umbrella..but all looks "flashy" to me and gives not homogeneous light.
If try to compensate with ambient light, here come the low shutter speeds again.

These are some Alec Soth example photos of what i'd like to achieve:

http://alecsoth.com/photography/wp-content/gallery/sleeping-by-the-mississippi/thumbs/thumbs_2002_05zL0044b.jpg

http://alecsoth.com/photography/wp-content/gallery/niagra/thumbs/thumbs_2005_05zL0151_F.jpg

http://alecsoth.com/photography/wp-content/gallery/sleeping-by-the-mississippi/thumbs/thumbs_Bonnie.jpg


Thanks everyone for any help.

Raffaele

[jp]

They are not naturally lit. Look at the second photo. The shape of the shadow around the bodies is not a point source light as one might have from a simple light fixture. The photographer was underneath and to the right of a large diffuse flash. The strength of the flash is not super strong, but probably a couple times brighter than room light, as TVs are generally fairly bright in artificially lit rooms. I see no shadows from windows nor reflections of windows on the TV, so I have to assume it's not lit by the outdoors. Furthermore the white balance on the TV looks natural; it would be rich blue if it were shot with normal 3200k film/filter/light. It was obviously shot with flash at a daylight color temperature. Also the shine on the guy's forehead and the long shine on the smooth legs of the girl indicate a large light source. Also above the girl you might notice the doorknob casts a shadow down about 45 degrees, where the shadow under their legs is straight down. You can combine these two piece of information to determine where the light source was. I'd guess it was in the upper left right out of the frame.

The third photo, you see under the arms equal shadows as if she were sitting under a light. Again it's not a point source light as the shadow is a little diffuse. You can also see a slight shadow on the wall behind her that is quite diffuse. Probably similar lighting except the photographer is likely right under and behind a big light.

In the first photo, the lighting is a little more obscure and looks fairly "naturnal" In reality, the walls are white and they probably just filled the room with light and use it as one big light tent. Almost nobody has a bedroom that is evenly lit as this scene.
The not-quite-right white balance of the photo that makes it quite natural as if it were lit with a CFL is probably because of the different tints of white of the paint reflecting room light around.

[jp]

You can learn some of this the hard way and hands on way by purchasing an umbrella, light stand, and doing some stuff with your speedlight or buying a more powerful monolight like white lightning / paul buff sells. You learn to look for shadows and see how lighting placement alters shadows. Winter outdoor photography is also good for observing shadows and incorporating them in your photos.

I'm guessing the first photo was done with 2 flashes and the others either with 1 flash, umbrella and reflector, or two flashes with one at lower power for fake ambient light.

[raffaelecapasso]

yes they're all things i noticed and studied, but i still wonder which kind of light was used.
i forgot to mention that they're all shot as "on journey" photographs, that's why i tend to exclude big heavy flashes.

[raffaelecapasso]

@jp498 i tried to use my umbrella,and it's a quite big one, but the light doesn't come out this way diffused.
i studied studio photography and actually know how light and shadows work, off course everything is replicable in studio, but i just wanted to know if someone uses portable flashes this way.

thanks guys.

[Richard Wasserman]

Lifted from facebook—

For Sleeping by the Mississippi he used a R.H. Phillips and Sons 8×10 Compact with a Nikon 300mm lens. He continued to use this equipment with NIAGARA, but he also added a K.B. Canham 8×10, a Nikon 800 (convertible to 1200mm), and a 210 Super-Angulon. For Dog Days, Bogota he used a Mamiya 6. For most of these projects he used Kodak Portra NC (400+160). For his editorial work, he shoots with a variety of equipment (Making Parts, for example, was shot with a Phase-One Lightphase medium format back).

He doesn’t do a ton of lighting, but sometimes has to add some strobe (inexpensive White Lightning monolights) or hotlights (Lowel).

[jp]

I also suspect the 3 example photos may have been modified to remove catchlights from eyes. There is quite a following of "strobists" who do nice lighting with portable flashes. I admire their ingenuity, but would rather use plugin flash where possible, sorta like I like real plug in power tools more than battery powered power tools.

I consider studio a little bit different as it's sort of a intended to be reflection free like an an anechoic chamber. In a house is a little different as you have to embrace the reflections from walls and ceilings. I'll show you what I do myself to get nicely lit photos in a home environment rather than speculate on someone elses.

http://jason.philbrook.us/gallery3/index.php/2010/album194?page=2

I use a white lightning 10000 for the main flash and a 5000 for the ambient light. I have white ceilings and various colored walls.

I put the 5000 on full power and place it about 10 feet out of the photo. It is lowered to the bottom of it's stand and aimed up with no modifiers to light up as much of the ceiling as possible. A whole ceiling of white light is analogous to being outdoors on a foggy day. This is a great way to softly light the room as long as you don't have the ceiling in the photo. You can see it in the background of this photo:

http://jason.philbrook.us/gallery3/var/resizes/2010/album194/DSC8658.jpg?m=1295386657

A few test shots with a DSLR will show how exactly it lights the room, as will darkening the other lights and using the modeling light.

The 10000 light usually has a white 3' diameter fabric umbrella. In these photos it is on my left about 8' from the subject and probably 5' up. Varying the power of this light varies the shadow strength or light glow on the face. Some light leaks through the white fabric and also serves as additional ambient light.

Below: Note the soft shadows under the furniture in the upper left. This is mostly from the light illuminating much of the ceiling.

http://jason.philbrook.us/gallery3/var/resizes/2010/album194/DSC8638.jpg?m=1295386624

http://jason.philbrook.us/gallery3/var/resizes/2010/album194/DSC8639.jpg?m=1295386628

Here is another slightly different example. I mixed natural daylight on a south window with the 10000 flash instead of using a second flash. Basically crank up the power till you get the right balance of daylight and flash.

http://jason.philbrook.us/gallery3/var/resizes/2010/album183/DSC7609.jpg?m=1295385281

to produce results like:

http://jason.philbrook.us/gallery3/var/resizes/2010/album183/DSC7597.jpg?m=1295385273


Sorry these are not actual LF photos, but I do use the same gear for the LF work as it's pretty low tech. I could use battery powered flashes instead with visually identical results, but I really like the faster recycling times and the modeling lights. I paid $400 probably ten years ago for the two flashes, 4 umbrellas, 2 stands, 20' cords, and a whole bunch of other accessories in a box. They sync up with each other as well automatically if a cord is not plugged into the slave, although new electronic flashes can do that as well.

Lots o fun mostly.

[Henry Ambrose]

Its pretty crude lighting.
If you're not <<insert currently famous photographer name here>> it'll just make you look like a hack. Unless you have extraordinarily compelling content in which case you may get by with it.

Bounce your strobe pointed away from the subject, into a far corner/ceiling of the room. May have to add another right up at the ceiling. Do it a few times with a digital camera and you'll get it. You're just filling the room with light.

[lenser]

I have to agree with Henry. This lighting, at least on the first and third example, appears to be poorly aimed bounce. No need to remove catch lights in the eyes, the shadows going straight down from the nose indicate that the bounce was so close that no light could navigate into the eyes to begin with.

Raffael, if you are looking to learn good portrait lighting, go back to the masters such as Karsh, Hurrell, Irving Penn, Phillipe Halsman, Arnold Newman, etc. and study how they use light to sculpt the planes of the face. There is a gigantic difference between just illumination and understanding artistic lighting.

[Ash]

As everyone else has said...

Like almost every commercially successful photo that has a person in it, some kind of strobe has been used. One giveaway apart from the shadows, is that everything is in focus, which is impossible with large format unless you stop down - that requires more light, so a strobe must be used.

The cheapest route is to use a typical slr flashgun bounced off the ceiling as far away from the subject as possible to get the most diffused light. The further away, the less likely you'll get sunken eyes or shadows on the face.

Generally a brolly (either reflecting, or shooting through) is enough to get light like that.

These are medium format, but...

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y43/second-belated/_MG_1175acopy.jpg

The flash was just behind me, on a tall light stand, pointed up at the ceiling. It was a small Nikon SB27 on 1/4 or 1/8 power. The light diffused off the white ceiling as if it were typical indoor light like we 'see'.


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y43/second-belated/aUntitled-12a.jpg

Here the flash was on a flash arm, so in-line with the camera, pointed up. The flash bounced off the ceiling a few feet above me to reduce shadows, but the light also went direct toward the women, meaning the shot has a lot more contrast.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y43/second-belated/Untitled-7a-5.jpg

This shot is indoors in a quite low-lit room without flash. The camera was on a tripod and the artist had to sit dead still for about 1/4 or 1/2. See how everything is shallow, though, because I had to keep the lens wide open to get as fast as 1/4?

[raffaelecapasso]

don't know what to say, maybe my flash (canon 430ex) is to weak or my ceiling to high (3 meters) but i simply can't replicate that light with a simple light bounce., even using it at maximum power.

@lenser I don't want any complicated artistic light, just a proper lighting as would be in daylight.

[eddie]

not sure. i shoot wet plate collodion where most of my exposure speeds are 4-8 seconds. with a bit of practice the model gets it no problem.

you can use a head brace or the like as well.

here is one.

[Jim Michael]

I would buy a single large reflector and a stand to hold it. If I could get the subject next to a window I would use the window light as key and use to reflector for fill. If I needed to shoot them away from the window I would bounce the flash off the reflector. Then you are not so dependent on having low ceilings, nearby walls, or risk dealing with those painted a color other than white. There are better controls like softboxes with grids but the single reflector is very useful by itself.

If you start mixing indoor light sources like lamps and ceiling fixtures with window light on color film you are going to encounter some difficult to solve color balance issues, for which the best approach usually involves gelling the windows or sources.

[drew.saunders]

I would buy a single large reflector and a stand to hold it.

I recently picked up this kit from B&H:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/283646-REG/Impact_CRK_32K_32_5_in_1_Reflector_with.html

They have several versions of it with different sized reflectors. I also picked up, from mpex, one of these: http://www.mpex.com/browse.cfm/4,11776.html that lets me mount a hotshoe-mounted flash at the end of the above stand, plus it'll hold an umbrella (if I had one). These are pretty inexpensive ways to get reasonable light control.

[Richard Mahoney]

I have to agree with Henry. This lighting, at least on the first and third example, appears to be poorly aimed bounce. ...
Raffael, if you are looking to learn good portrait lighting, go back to the masters such as Karsh, Hurrell, Irving Penn, Phillipe Halsman, Arnold Newman, etc. and study how they use light to sculpt the planes of the face. There is a gigantic difference between just illumination and understanding artistic lighting.

Although I've no doubt that Soth created the effect he was after I find this style of lighting difficult, harsh and irritating. To the alternatives listed above I would add a fellow I came across the other day. I find his work is problematic in other ways but not his treatment of light, tone and colour: see esp. the `Portraits' --

George Pitts
http://www.georgepitts.com/



Kind regards,

Richard

[thomashobbs]

Speedlights like a Canon 580 EX aren't really powerful enough to bounce off a ceiling if you're shooting with an 8x10 [as Alec Soth does]. Even if you're using Portra 400 you'll probably only get to f8 or f11 which is still a very shallow depth of field with a 300mm lens.

You might try getting a couple of mono-lights in the 600ws range and then bouncing them off the corner ceilings. Doing this I found I could get into the f16/f22 range which gave me enough depth of field. Also, I think using a bounced flash is a good way to get a neutral color balance in an interior space [assuming the ceilings are white]. Guadalupe Ruiz does this with her interior portraits [ www.lupita.ch ].

[Ramiro Elena]

Those, to me, look like a speedlight bounced to the ceiling. You can experiment with a digital SLR and get similar lighting results. What makes you think they're large format? (they're square images) Sure they could be cropped but...

The spaces look small so you would have plenty of light bounced from the walls too.

Ash's examples look a lot like the real deal.

[bobwysiwyg]

. See how everything is shallow, though, because I had to keep the lens wide open to get as fast as 1/4?

Ash,

I really like this one. You may have had to keep it wide open for speed, but I think the shallow DOF really works. Had both foreground and background been in focus, it would have been "busy" and your eye would not be drawn to the primary subject.

[raffaelecapasso]

Speedlights like a Canon 580 EX aren't really powerful enough to bounce off a ceiling if you're shooting with an 8x10 [as Alec Soth does]. Even if you're using Portra 400 you'll probably only get to f8 or f11 which is still a very shallow depth of field with a 300mm lens.

You might try getting a couple of mono-lights in the 600ws range and then bouncing them off the corner ceilings. Doing this I found I could get into the f16/f22 range which gave me enough depth of field. Also, I think using a bounced flash is a good way to get a neutral color balance in an interior space [assuming the ceilings are white]. Guadalupe Ruiz does this with her interior portraits [ www.lupita.ch ].


thanks thomas, i think it is the way to go... speedlights really aren't powerfull enough.