Portrait shadowing question

[Seltzer]

This isn't something I have had a chance to run out and try yet but I keep seeing all of these great portrait pictures with wonderful shadowing across half the face or the person is in perfect view but the background and anything else is very dark. Any tips or suggestions on easy ways to get such a great effect without getting the whole image completely dark or the person washed out?

[kristin]

Could you post an example of what you're talking about so we could get a better idea?

[Seltzer]

hmm... things like Tim's self portrait here: http://digital-photography-school.com/forum/showthread.php?t=88&page=3#top

and the recent picture posted in the critique my shot here: http://digital-photography-school.com/forum/showthread.php?t=394

I know there is a bit to do with the lighting and such and as I said I haven't played with it a lot but I'm just not sure what settings will bring this around.. fast shutter speed with low lighting?

[googlit]

Two things come to mind for me:

* shooting in the dark with light on your subject, and
* shooting with a flash.

If you have an off-camera flash with some diffusers, you can be very picky about where the light goes. Make sure your subject isn't near any walls or anything, as they'll pick up the light.

Sometimes it's as easy as playing with a desk lamp in a dark room.

You can go into Photoshop after the fact and add some darkness, but it's almost always best to get it exposed in the camera the way you want it.

hope that helped some. :)

[beckywithasmile]

We had a similar assignment in my beginning photography class (only with a still object). If you don't have a dark room, try using a black sheet or fabric behind the person. Turn off all the lights except an office lamp (or a smilar type of lam that you can point where you want). Point it at the person and take the picture. For my class I think I used a pineapple in my family's garage at night.

[Seltzer]

Thanks again for the tips and help on this, I'll post if I ever try this. :)

[Murtasma]

You could probably also just use the burn tool as well.

EDIT Sorry wrong thread

[pstutorials]

You can use photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop to enhance the appearance of your picture and create some photo effects like putting shadows


Hope this helps

================
<a href="http://pstutorials.freehostia.com/"> Free Photoshop Tutorials </a>

[yokolok]

i think the effect is something like what is called split lighting...wherein the light is off to one side, like in the your example of tim's self portrait...notice how his temple shows the reflection of the light source...

[brianfarrell]

This was taken with daylight from a window about 2 feet to the sitter's right shoulder. Sitter slightly angled away from window. Silver reflector (4 ft square) at 45 degrees to sitter's left for some fill on left of face. Black velvet cloth providing backdrop to absorb stray light. Expose for the skin tones.



<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa135/brianfarrell/dps/me.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a>

Oh and it's me :)

Hello!

HTH
Brian

[ELAY]

Seltzer, I think some people do it using backgrounds that don't reflect light.

But you can also use flash and certain camera settings to make a background go dark, in a couple of ways

First is key-shifting. Sorry if this is too basic, but if you remember that shutter speed will not affect the exposure of the flash-lit bits in a photo (because the shutter is always open longer than the time the flash goes off), then you can really do some creative things. Basically if you compose your shot to really underexpose the background (dropping shutter speed especially), and then add flash to your subject in the foreground, you can get the effect you are talking about. If you are using on-camera flash, then it can be a bit harder, as you have to worry about the flash hitting your backdrop, and because sometimes the flash isn't powerful enough to light the subject if you underexpose too much.

Anyway here's a not great example which will serve to illustrate the point-- first shot is taken using automatic metering on aperture priority mode (f/8, 1/160):

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/67761809@N00/1115547318/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1085/1115547318_cc9edc4240.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="DSC_4487" /></a>

With this one, taken about a minute later (taken after some experimenting), the shutter speed is up from 1/160 to 1/400 to underexpose, and I stopped down from f/8 to f/11 too, to get more underexposure and because the flash looked too strong.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/67761809@N00/1115547346/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1123/1115547346_8199de5f90.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="DSC_4499" /></a>

Note how the sky goes dark because of the underexposure, but the concrete is now brighter because I got it with the flash.

The other thing you can do if you have your flash off-camera is experiment with flash intensity and proximity to the subject. I will let David Hobby (aka Strobist) tell you how to do this -- go here (http://strobist.blogspot.com/2007/06/lighting-102-12-position-distance.html).

Cheers,

EL

[Benji]

This isn't something I have had a chance to run out and try yet but I keep seeing all of these great portrait pictures with wonderful shadowing across half the face or the person is in perfect view but the background and anything else is very dark. Any tips or suggestions on easy ways to get such a great effect without getting the whole image completely dark or the person washed out?

Simple. Put about three or four stops more light on one side of the face than what is on the other side and set the aperture for the highlight side. In my example below the fill light and background light was about two to three stops less than the main light.

Ben