day 42 - color contrast rimlight

the idea today was to explore two rimlights, each with an opposing color gel. i kinda touched on this idea a while back, but i haven't explored it fully yet, i don't think. the basic idea is to have a daylight balanced (color-neutral) main light illuminating the subject, and then have a cross light at the same time, with one rim light having a warm cast (cto) and one having a cool cast (a window green gel). my thinking is that this will put a subtle bit of color tension onto the subject, and provide an extra layer of interest.

so that's what i did. i think there is untapped potential here. maybe doubling or tripling the cto / w-green on the rimlight will increase the level of intensity.... or maybe i need less "overlapping" between the rimlights and the color-neutral main. maybe i don't even need the neutral main light.

anyways. all ideas. i'm going to have to revisit this one and see what else i can come up with.

setup shot:



i know i put "ctb" in that picture, but i actually think i used a green gel on the rimlight @ camera right. sorry.

day 41 - out in evanston

got another new diffuser, this one a lastolite trigrip, and i wanted to try it out. so alisia and i went to the train station, which has this crazy old brown wall. so this shot is about sunset, one sb-28 high camera left, through a 42" white umbrella, and i'm hand holding camera right my trigrip, with the white reflector bouncing light back onto alisia.

yep easy setup, easy shot. i was going to throw together a rimlight, but i forgot to grab an extra flash. so all you get here is main and reflector.

sorry, no setup shot. the flash was at 1/4 power, and the camera was wide open at iso 100.

day 40 - workin that reflector

yep. for today i wanted to do some hard core beauty stuff. just wait until i get interested in boudoir photography.... that's going to be an interesting set of images of me.

anyways. i wanted a big, diffuse uplight and a very present rimlight. so i set up my white reflector about chest high and parallel to the ground, then floated a shoothrough umbrella above my head. then a rimlight from behind me, camera right through a grid for quick falloff, and it's done.

i don't think i'm going to win any beauty competitions, but the light is quite pretty.

setup shot:

day 39 - evolution

my usual photography routine is: i'll set up some lights, take a test shot, adjust lights, take a test shot, adjust some more, take a test shot, decide i liked it better the first way, adjust everything back, take a test shot, decide that's good enough, i guess, and then shoot and shoot and shoot, hoping that in one of these pictures i'll magically capture myself from a good angle, or with a decent expression, or something. then i'll pick up the camera, move to where i can see everything that i set up, take a picture for my setup shot, and then i'm done.

joe mcnally has recently been talking alot about how important the "contact sheet" is. how photo editors don't want to see your greatest hits, they want to see your thinking process during the shoot. how in the contact sheet you can see "well, the first picture was too dark, so he pumped up the light for #2, but then too many shadows on the left, so a reflector was added for #3......."

anyways. i thought that might make for an interesting blog post. more stream of consciousness, less "so i came up with all this in my head, and it all worked, because i'm super awesome like that". so buckle up, because this ride is about to roll right into my head and into what i was thinking when i was thinking it.

my first idea was to hang up a green sheet behind me as a backdrop. i got to stop shooting my couch just because i'm too lazy to move it. so i taped up the sheet, and set up a white umbrella high camera right with my strobe at 1/8th power, mostly going into the umbrella, but with some light pouring past it into my new white reflector i set up high camera left to provide a bit more fill on the subject (me).

#1.

thoughts: well, allright. that's a little dark. the sheet i hung up as a background is nice and black. maybe we'll turn up the power on the flash a little, eh? that might help.

#2.

thoughts: that's more like it. looks like nothing is getting blown out, no overexposed areas. it's a little boring though. the sheet looks black still. maybe a rim light camera right will help make this more interesting. and maybe angle the reflector to throw more even light on the subject (me).

#3.

thoughts: oh yeah, i like that rim light. it's a little subtle, i'd like the rim to be wider. more immediately evident, i guess. maybe if i move it forward, more even with the subject (me) it'll be more prominent in the picture.

#4.

thoughts: yep, that's more like it. this picture is starting to come together. why did i wear my moby shirt? now people are going to think i like his recent (terrible) output, and not know that i only like stuff he did a decade ago, up through the "play" album. damn. and hey, why is that background still black? i thought the sheet was green?

#5.

thoughts: oh yeah, setting a flash on the floor behind me aimed up at the sheet really helped. now people can see how it's all wrinkly. i kinda don't like how it's centered so low in the photo, though. maybe a grid spot will focus it up higher, more behind my head-ish.

#6.

thoughts: oh yeahhhhhh. that's much better. draws the eye right up to my head, where i want people to be looking. this picture is looking better and better.

#7.

thoughts: this is the time on sprockets when we dance.

so yeah, that's about it. i hope everyone enjoyed this twisted journey through my thought processes. i'm not going to be doing this alot (or maybe, ever again) but i thought it's a good way to see what decisions were being made in response to what, and how the picture gets assembled. notice that in this case i worked front to back, i set up the main light and reflector first, then the rimlight, then finally the background strobe. working front to back is usually the best way to do it, since your subject is usually in the front of the picture, and less important things are in the back. it's something to think about when approaching a complicated lighting setup. i also try to really nail each light source / device before moving on to the next one. that way i won't wind up trying to solve a problem that has more than one contributing factor. this way i am faced with just simple problem after simple problem. and simple problems are easy to solve.

late.

one more thing - tako saw me taking pictures of her and decided it was time to play:


setup shot:

day 38 - circle diffuser

i was joined halfway through this photoshoot by my lovely partner in crime, who walked in and said "uhh.... what are you doing?" and then was quickly talked into doing some improvised kung fu poses.

yep, my powers of persuasion are legendary around here.

anyways. i'm still playing with my new stuff. this is using my 40" 5-in-1 as a diffuser. i set up the circle high camera left, and then positioned a strobe behind it. it's a lot like using a shoot-through umbrella, but since it's not umbrella shaped it doesn't taper away from you quickly. this is the real reason i bought this reflector/diffuser rig. using this you can walk outside in the middle of the day, hold it up over someone's head so that it softens and diffuses the direct, hard sunlight..... and bam! perfect lighting conditions right there. i'm thinking it's a must have piece of equipment.

so yeah. easy setup. i was thinking color contrast, so i set up a 42" silver umbrella w' a blue/green gel as a rimlight, but it's not really doing much.... i got so into alisia's kung fu poses i forgot to adjust it properly.

setup shot:

day 37 - new stuff

that's right. i got new stuff today. specifically, i got a 40" 5-in-1 reflector/diffuser kit. oh yeah, that'll make the panties drop. (just for the record, i don't usually wear panties. it's sort of a only-on-special-occasions thing.... i only do it on days of the week that end in the letter "y"..... i might be sharing too much right now).

anyways. yeah, it's a reflector with a silver side, a black side, a white side, a gold side, and a diffusion screen. i of course am super excited to use it, so i hung it up right away and here is the first setup with my new stuff.

in this shot i'm using the silver side reflector. silver is more mirror-like than white, it tends to bounce back a lot of specular highlights, but i thought i'd start off with it anyways. while i was setting it up on my boom arm, i realized that the other end of my boom arm is threaded, so you can attach a light to the back end of it. one quick justin clamp - strobe - sb3 later, i've got a cross light situation with a big shiny reflector filling in the middle.

so really the only difference between this and day 36 is the silver reflector. and all that it's doing is getting rid of that heavy shadow that was dominating my face. this shot is a lot less mysterious, and much more straightforward. take away the reflector, and we're back to shadow town.

i think i'm gonna like my new reflector/diffuser.

setup shot:

day 36 - hard soft

the goal today was to get a strong shadow on my face. mission accomplished. i achieved this look using a 42" silver reflective umbrella high camera right, and a sb-3 softbox eye level - behind me - camera left.

i think this type of light is very pleasing to the eye because it involves a lot of dark areas next to light areas. so there's a lot of contrast in a lot of places, which is interesting to the viewer. compare my right shoulder to my left. my right shoulder has harder light on it, and that's defining all these folds and creases in my sweatshirt. my left shoulder is getting very soft wrap around light, and the folds and creases there aren't nearly as defined.

so i like this picture. it has hard and soft. when i first started taking pictures seriously i was convinced that soft light was the way to go. the softer the better. and sometimes that's a good strategy. but i started to realize how limiting that strategy could be. sometimes you need hard edges. i'm starting to be more enamored with using both hard and soft light simultaneously. it's fun.

setup shot:

day 35 - split uplight

today i felt like a little uplight. so i set up two reflective umbrellas on either side of me, kept 'em low and angled them up towards my upper body. then i used my boom arm and floated my lumiquest sb-3 about two feet above my head, angled down. set up the camera at a low position looking up so that i look intimidating (also a good technique for shooting bald guys.... less chance for their head to make a strong appearance) and took some shots.

i like how it came out. my arms look huge, partly because of the lighting on them, and partly because they're closer than anything else to the camera.

still though, i've got to get some better models.

setup shot:

day 34 - double reflector / edge of light

so my idea this time is to set up two reflectors, one above and one below, angled at more or less 90 degrees to each other. one flash illuminates the top, one the bottom. it's more of a technical challenge for me than anything else, since my first instinct is usually to grab an umbrella. so a couple shots in, i get the one posted above. it's good, but i'm getting a bit bored with this kind of thing.

so i decided to try and "play at the edges". try and get a shot where i'm not as well illuminated, or only partly illuminated. i set up the colorsplash to shine some color on the background, took a few more, and got this one:

this one's a bit more interesting to me right now. it's not as great of a lighting setup, but it's a less conventional pose and has a very different feel to it, which i'm liking at the moment. the evolution continues.

here's the setup shot:

day 33 - happy light

alisia has this lamp that she got at costco that's made for people with seasonal affective disorder. people with SAD are very sensitive to not getting enough sunlight in the winter. it makes them depressed, lethargic, they oversleep..... so this lamp is supposed to trick their bodies into thinking they are getting a lot of sunlight. it's supposed to be a full-spectrum light source, you're feeling down, stuck in your cubicle or where-ever, plug this in, it makes you feel like you're outside at the park.

anyways. i thought it might make a good shake and bake type light source. something to leave on in the background, drag the shutter, and burn it in. so i set it up, and the first thing i noticed is that at neutral white balance, it photographs slightly bluish. i decided i like that. so i put a cto (correct to orange) gel on my flash (did i mention i had a flash set up?) so that when i correct for the orange tint in lightroom (by shifting towards the blue side of the spectrum) the happy light will go really blue.  which is exactly what happened. i love it when a plan comes together.

my light setup here is really simple. i have a sb-28 (w' cto gel) bouncing off the ceiling then back down to a reflector board set up about chest high right in front of me. this catches light coming off the ceiling and throws it up in my face. set my aperture to 3.5, my shutter speed to 1/4 second (to burn in the happy light) and it's done.

you do have to remember to stay still during that 1/4 second, though. you'll be sharp because the flash only lights you up for a tiny fraction of a second, but the happy light will burn a weird halo around you if you move too much.

setup shot:

day 32 - subtle light

my goal today was to set up a lot of lights at low power and let them wrap gently and do their thing. the idea was to make a really subtle, not overpowering situation, with a lot of skin texture and gradients.

so that's what i did. set up a lot of big light sources, gel a few flashes, set 'em all pretty low, hopefully let them add up to enough light to illuminate me. i shot it, and it came out allright. the real achievement in this picture though is the way i tweaked it.

i had gelled different flashes a couple different colors, and wasn't happy with the color balance at all. so i decided to go black and white. but there wasn't a great amount of contrast in the b/w image. so i started dragging hue saturation sliders up and down.

the cool thing (one of many) about lightroom is that you can adjust all the saturation levels using different sliders. so there's a red slider and an orange, yellow, green, aqua.... you get the picture. and once you've made a b/w conversion, lightroom still knows what's what colorwise. so in this image, my face was a little darker than i'd like. i have a mostly red/pink skin tone in my face, so i grabbed the red slider, pushed it up, and my face and skin got lighter in the black and white image. i decided i wanted more detail on my blue shirt, so i grabbed the blue slider and turned it up. found out only my lips and ear cartilage were on the magenta slider, so i set that where i wanted it to be.

i played with the picture for maybe five minutes, sliders up and down, watching parts of the black and white image change, until i got to this point, where i decided i liked it, and quit. looks good as a black and white, i got to say.

here's the setup shot: