Girl On A Blue Chair

[sedetweiler]

I would make a lousy goth. However, I still have an appreciation for this look, but really only on women. Men just can't seem to pull off the eye-liner and other aspects without looking... well, weird. At least on the female species the goth look has an enduring appeal to me, probably because you can really bend the images into the realm of the surreal and they still work.

So, today we are going to do exactly that. We are going to take an image of a lovely Gothic model I have known for quite a while now named Jen. We have a great location in a building with several wrecked rooms and lots of texture.

Tutorial on posing, lighting, and retouching this image here:
Light, Shoot & Edit: Lady On A Blue Chair

After:


Before:

[FocalFrenzy]

She looks incredible. Amazing work. Now all I need is to find a willing Gothic model. BTW, the tip about the Wal-Mart ankle weights is going to save me some serious coin. Thanks.

[Gaurav Prabhu]

Looks wonderful. Loved the details from the background.

[BigFuzzy]

Really nice work overall. Nice lighting work, fits the image very well. Love the contrast in the background wall.

Only small thing I'd say, and it's a personal taste thing, is that the skin feels a bit too "plasticy" to me (as far as I can tell from this size of image). I know it's commonly done, but it's just something that I notice very quickly..

still, nice work!

[sedetweiler]

BigFuzzy, her skin is actually untouched and is as it appears out of the camera. I never use any bluring technique on skin, as I love it when there is texture. She has stellar skin (and is 31 to boot), so that is how it appears in real life. However, your point is indeed valid and I appreciate the feedback, but unless I add noise to her she doesn't have much more texture to offer. the processing for the photo was 99% background and a mole or 2 on her face, that about sums it up.