Studio Lighting: Part 4

Black backgrounds are exactly opposite of white background when it comes to technique. Instead of lighting the background for a 1-2 stop over exposure, the point is under exposure.  The key lighting is the same, but fill is often needed as well as a hair and rim light to separate the subject from the background. By keeping all light from directly or indirectly hitting the background you'll get an even background. If you want gradation, a flash unit on a low power can do the trick. Here's a couple more examples of some of this season's high school seniors all shot on a black background.

 

Correcting Lens Distortion in Photoshop

If you're like me and love wide angle you've come across some unwanted distortion a time or two. This mainly manifests itself around the edges of an image with bending and curvature. This can be a problem, especially when it happens to someone's head! For the image below you'll see in the before how large her hand looks, and her arm is probably 2 times as long as it should be. Since she's not a primate, this should be corrected. Here's how:

• Select Filter>Distort>Lens Correction. Depending on how your image is distorted you have a number of sliders to help correct the issue.
• Remove Distortion will help to bring an image back into proportion. This kind of problem often comes from fish eye lenses and other wider angle lenses. It is not as noticable with cropped frame sensors but it is very obvious with full frame senored digital cameras and traditional film cameras.
• Chromatic Aberration corrects color shifts.
• Vignetting, or a darkening around the edges of the frame. I often add a vignette for artistic means. 
• Transform is what I used for the image below. First the Vertical perspective was adjusted to bring her face and arm back into correct proportion and then the Horizontal to shorten her right arm to the correct length. The image was then cropped since when you use this filter the edges of the image are no longer in their original position.

Original Image- (look at the left arm, she should be a basketball super star!)

Corrected Image- Still has a feeling of perspective, but her arm and face now look like they are supposed to be on the same body.

 There you have it, one powerful filter to fix a host of distortions! It's also fun to use this same filter to add distortions and fake the look of a fish eye lens. Here's an example.
Distorted image: You'll notice how the distortion makes the subject separate from the background and then add curvature to the bridge in the background.

Original:

Software Review: Portrait Professional

My nephew (pictured right) Ian is our subject for today's blog post. For years I have been retouching and editing portraits and up until 2007 I was always scared when shooting a High School Senior's session. As I worked I thought about all the time it would take to edit out acne and other blemishes from his/her skin. Unlike many kids Ian's age, he has great skin, but I'm going to use him anyways to show off how Portrait Professional works.
So here's works:

1. Select key points on the face of your subject: Eyes, lips, nose, etc. 
2. Make adjustments with the sliders hair, eyes, skin, face contouring.
3. Sit back and enjoy the hours of free time you've just gained by not having to edit each image in Photoshop.

Here's the before (top) and after (bottom) close up.
You'll notice that all his freckles are gone, skin is even, eyes are whiter and more vibrant green, and softer shadows on the right side of his face. This took only a few minutes as where all of these changes might take 10 or more minutes, which can really add up when you have hundreds of photos!
For those of you keeping score at home, this is called a Rembrandt lighting pattern. See the small triangle of light on the shadowed portion of the face? Similar lighting is often seen in Rembrandt's work. He had a skylight in his studio that produced a similar effect on his subjects.
To light this shot I used a single SB800 on a light stand 45 degrees from camera left. The exposure is 1/160@ f 5.6. The day was very overcast but the addition of the speedlight made it look as if the light is all natural.

Tomorrow: Photographing in front of your Christmas tree: Three different effects you can use!

High School Senior Portraits are the New Enviromental Portraits

When I was in high school senior portraits were a big deal but the type of images were completely different. We went to a studio, posed with giant numbers that read '99 (feel free to guess my age here) and called it a day. Back then, that was a non-traditional photograph and we all loved it. Things have evolved slightly in the last 10 years and more and more soon-to-be graduates are taking their portrait sessions on location and expressing themselves in more interesting ways then the kids in my graduating class.  For example, this senior is obviously a tennis player. Now a similar shot done in the studio with her racket and tennis outfit would have told you the same thing, but it wouldn't have been as interesting.

By shooting on location I was able to design an image that included the wonderful evening light as well as the texture of the asphalt and tennis net that comes on any regulation court. As usual though, my favorite part is the light. On the west side of the court tall pine trees were growing and as the sun sunk low in the horizon they formed these "beams" of light on the court. It also created the shadows from the net (which are just awesome). After taking a few shots of the subject standing behind the net I decided to have her sit in this spot and try a different angle. Standing directly above her (with slightly wide angle lens obviously) I shot this image at 1/60 @ f 6.3. I wanted good depth of field from head to toe on her and from the angle I shot it at (16mm) I was able to get her full body.

We shot a variety of images on location at with several different outfits and then finished our session at my studio. And just so no one asks, I don't have any giant letters or numbers that I force students to stand by.

The key to shooting portraits on location is creating a connection between the subject and the place. This is what environmental portraiture is all about. When you can create an image that tells a story using all visual elements that are at your disposal, you'll find that your work has more meaningful to you personally and your clients.

For more information about having your senior portraits with Irene Jones Photography please visit our High School Senior Site or our main page for pricing information and samples. You can also view this session and others in their entirety by visiting our client log in page.  Click on the session you wish to view and enter password 21366.

Next up: Infant Photography and photos of the newest member of our family!

Flash in Daylight: Creating Dimention and Mood

Before I took this shot I said to my subject, "Okay, now we're going to take a few where it looks like it's evening and your under a street light." She responded with a classic, "That's cool." For a photo geek, that's an understatement since it was 2pm in the afternoon, in the summer. This shot was done downtown Snohomish, Washington. I love the historic feel of this little town and the the Snohomish River waterfront that is only steps from shops and restaurants. It feels like Pioneer Square in Seattle but without the tourists and transients to distract my subject. So how does one create a false street light and evening light? I'll answer that with a  diagram- including stick figures!

It was a windy day, so umbrellas on the speed-light would spell disaster, so instead I grabbed my Lightsphere to add a little softness, but not much, I wanted the light source to mimic the harsh quality of street lights, so it put it up about 8 feet and pointed it down on the subject. I also put the light close to the building to extend the shadow behind her. Then I asked her to look in the direction of the flash for three reasons: to create a classic lighting pattern on her face, emphasize her great cheek bones, and to add interest to the portrait by insinuating that she's waiting for something or someone on this street. To add to the concept of a pretty young girl alone on a street at night, I shifted her to the far left of the frame and balanced the image with the window in the top corner. This design creates a visual triangle; your eye starts at the light coming from the top corner, moves to the subject, and then up again to the window, and back to the light. Does the set up seem simple ?  It is! The hard part is the exposure and even then it's not very difficult. It's just involves a little guess and check.

I didn't want a lot of ambient light affecting the shot, keeping the illusion that it late evening light was very important, but at the same time I didn't want to have to use another strobe unit to light the window separately, so some daylight had to be included; just enough to add detail in the window and wall and allow the flash to be the main light on the subject. Even though my flash unit was only about 4 feet from the subject, I set it 1/1 power (or full power). I then set the f-stop to match the power of the flash. The exposure turned out to be 1/160 at F9. I also tried slower shutter speeds to see the difference in the ambient light. At 1/60 a second the daylight overpowered the shot and the shadow on the wall dissipated. At 1/250 the window was barely visible. In total we probably took about 10 versions of this shot to get the right expression and exposure. On the right is another version shot at 1/160 @ f 6.3 . On this one I simply backed the light stand and flash combo back a foot farther from our High School Senior. By increasing the distance between the light and the subject I changed the intensity of the light falling on her face. I still can't decide which image I like better, the second one has softer shadows and looks be be earlier in the day then the first, but I love her face in the second one more. These are the tough choices we photographers have to make! What do you think? Please share your comments. Also if you would like to view more of my High School Senior Portraits please visit our senior site or Irene Jones Photography Online.

Next up: Painting with strobe light.