Portrait Sessions: Week 4

[Corey Thompson]

This week I was lucky enough to get my friend Thomas to pose for me. I tried various different setups and this one was what I ultimately liked the best. This is another attempt at Rembrandt lighting. The hat and sun glasses have been ditched for this shot and I decided to use the blue painted wall in my apartment for a back drop as opposed to a black background. I didn't use any fill light for this shot, only key light off camera to the right 45 degrees. Post processing is very minimal for color correction and to remove a couple of blemishes.

Are the shadows too dramatic? Should I have added a bounce card camera left to add fill? How could I have made this shot more interesting? Does the shadow on his right shoulder look bad? If you were processing this in photoshop, what would you do to this photo to enhance it?

As always all feedback, negative or positive, is much appreciated.



Exif:
Canon 40D
Focal Length: 50mm
Aperture: f/8
Shutter: 1/250 second
ISO:100

Strobist:
Canon 430EX II
45 degrees camera right
1/2 power
zoomed to 50mm
sto-fen diffuser
honel 1/8 inch grid

[doctorjames]

Originally Posted by Corey Thompson

Are the shadows too dramatic? Should I have added a bounce card camera left to add fill? How could I have made this shot more interesting? Does the shadow on his right shoulder look bad? If you were processing this in photoshop, what would you do to this photo to enhance it?

As always all feedback, negative or positive, is much appreciated.

Hi Corey, well its all too easy to give 'bad' feedback and overlook the good.

There are lots of things I would change, but that doesnt neccesarily mean that I am right. I will start with what I think is good however:

I think you have the exposure of your subject correct (to my liking) and that of your background. Im guessing there is some ambient light about to light the wall (as it seems to be coming camera left) and you have combined an appropriate shutter speed, strobe to subject to strobe to background ratio to avoid lighting up the wall and taking your eyes off the subject.


Your choice of strobe angle is very safe, which isnt always a bad thing. You have created a feeling of depth to the face, making the skin tones and textures inviting. The 'safe' angle does have its pitfalls though, which I will come to in a minute.

To start off with I thought the light was a little hard, but thinking about it carefully i think this is actually probably the way to go with this. Any softer and I think you would lose some of the impact.

Now on to the 'bad' stuff, along with what I would have done differently. Hopefully you will view this as food for thought, and not me trying to offend.

1) Your model is straight on, looking straight on, and this looks far too much like a passport photo or police mug shot. (though the lighting is definitely superior to both )

There needs to be some give in this, either different pose, camera angle or both. As a result the lower 3rd of the shot is predominantly filled with a single colour t-shirt which I think 'drowns' the photo a little.

The second consequence of your shooting angle and pose (and strobe direction choice), is that the lightest part of the image is your models left ear (camera right) and neck line, which at a quick glance isnt much of an issue, but the more you look at it, the stronger a problem it becomes.

2) There is little to no detail in a lot of the shadow, which makes the shadowed area a little uninteresting.

There needs to be some fill light here, not much but enough to get rid of the blackness.. How much of the shot area flashed up on your histogram screen as underexposed when you shot this?

You could acheive this either with a reflector or card as you suggest or a second strobe on a much lower power than before, and perhaps with a snoot/gobo to avoid lighting the wall through spilt light.. A far away position for this may allow you to gently and evenly fill the shadows, but at the risk of spilling onto your background. You could get very close in with a shoot through umbrella and get away with a very low power on the 2nd strobe, which would likely have no effect on your background..

3) This is the one I hope you and Thomas dont get upset about as I dont mean it in a nasty way. Who is Thomas, what does he do, why is he interesting and why does my brain want to devote some time to thinking about him? This shot doesnt really draw me to make any conclusions about this, and I think this is the underlying issue with what needs to be addressed. Discussion regarding the technical aspects is all well and good, but there needs to be something a little more arty in this shot, it needs to tell some kind of story... otherwise it just falls back to a potentially nicely lit passport photo.


As for photoshop, I have almost stopped using it now. I use lightroom for fairly minor corrections and cropping e.t.c. but try to get things right on camera as much as I can. I wouldnt edit this further in photoshop, I would ask Thomas to come round again for a repeat sitting if you wished to correct anything.

I hope you find this relatively interesting and useful critique. Feel free to critique my critique as perhaps I over-do it sometimes, but I really feel strongly that people should answer these requests honestly, and not just go 'yeah, I like it'. Let me know if you think I should tone it down a little........

James

[drummingpariah]

Originally Posted by doctorjames

I hope you find this relatively interesting and useful critique. Feel free to critique my critique as perhaps I over-do it sometimes, but I really feel strongly that people should answer these requests honestly, and not just go 'yeah, I like it'. Let me know if you think I should tone it down a little........

James

I wish everybody would critique like you just did. Thoughtful, provoking, and honest (in an oddly intimate kind of way, I thought).

Back to Corey's shot:
I love the lighting, I'd try to keep the same effect on the face, but add definition to the hair (I'd try adding little more light on the wall to outline the top of his hair's silhouette). The shadowed side of his face has a beautiful, crisp outline that I'd be cautious of losing if you add a little fill light to that side of his face.

Lastly, if you're going to fill the shot with as much of the shirt you chose, I'd use a more textured cloth or light the shirt to bring out that texture. The lower half of the picture is detracting from the effectiveness of this shot because of it.

That's really all my amateur eye has caught right now, so I also hope this helps and doesn't lead you in the wrong direction.
-Jesse

[Corey Thompson]

James, thank you very much for the honest and detailed critique you provided. I did not take offense to any of it. I enjoyed reading it and have a lot to think about.

Originally Posted by doctorjames

1) Your model is straight on, looking straight on, and this looks far too much like a passport photo or police mug shot. (though the lighting is definitely superior to both )

I see what you're saying about shooting the subject straight on. Aside from the lighting, this makes for an uninteresting photo. There isn't enough going on with the subject to keep your attention for very long.

Originally Posted by doctorjames

There needs to be some give in this, either different pose, camera angle or both. As a result the lower 3rd of the shot is predominantly filled with a single colour t-shirt which I think 'drowns' the photo a little.

The second consequence of your shooting angle and pose (and strobe direction choice), is that the lightest part of the image is your models left ear (camera right) and neck line, which at a quick glance isnt much of an issue, but the more you look at it, the stronger a problem it becomes.

I think a different pose would definitely help, and perhaps a different shirt altogether. I'll keep this in mind for future shots too.

Should the lightest part of the image be the eyes and cheeks? Would a simple remedy be to not shoot straight on and if I do, move the light so that the ear and neck line don't get exposed the most?

Originally Posted by doctorjames

There needs to be some fill light here, not much but enough to get rid of the blackness.. How much of the shot area flashed up on your histogram screen as underexposed when you shot this?

You could acheive this either with a reflector or card as you suggest or a second strobe on a much lower power than before, and perhaps with a snoot/gobo to avoid lighting the wall through spilt light.. A far away position for this may allow you to gently and evenly fill the shadows, but at the risk of spilling onto your background. You could get very close in with a shoot through umbrella and get away with a very low power on the 2nd strobe, which would likely have no effect on your background..

Good question on the histogram. That reminds me, I need to turn the histogram back on in my camera settings.

I'm not sure why I didn't use a reflector in this shot. I've been consistently trying to use a reflector in my shots but for whatever reason, probably laziness, I stopped using it towards the end of this shoot, which was when this shot was taken. I don't have a second light unfortunately.

I'm not so good with using a shoot through umbrella. Everytime I've tried using one it was like letting off a light grenade in the room. It always lights up everything in my photos. Is there a trick to using one without it lighting up everything? Should I turn the power way down and move it in as close as possible to the subject?

Originally Posted by doctorjames

3) This is the one I hope you and Thomas dont get upset about as I dont mean it in a nasty way. Who is Thomas, what does he do, why is he interesting and why does my brain want to devote some time to thinking about him? This shot doesnt really draw me to make any conclusions about this, and I think this is the underlying issue with what needs to be addressed. Discussion regarding the technical aspects is all well and good, but there needs to be something a little more arty in this shot, it needs to tell some kind of story... otherwise it just falls back to a potentially nicely lit passport photo.

Thank you for pointing this out. I tend to get so caught up in all the technical details that I forget to pay attention to who this subject is and how I can capture that in a photo. Thomas is a car mechanic who is just starting off in the field. Perhaps in a future photo I can get him to wear his uniform and hold a torque wrench over his shoulder.

Originally Posted by doctorjames

As for photoshop, I have almost stopped using it now. I use lightroom for fairly minor corrections and cropping e.t.c. but try to get things right on camera as much as I can. I wouldnt edit this further in photoshop, I would ask Thomas to come round again for a repeat sitting if you wished to correct anything.

I hope you find this relatively interesting and useful critique. Feel free to critique my critique as perhaps I over-do it sometimes, but I really feel strongly that people should answer these requests honestly, and not just go 'yeah, I like it'. Let me know if you think I should tone it down a little........

It's good to come across another person who prefers not to go overboard with Photoshop. I barely even know how to use Photoshop. I kind of prefer to keep it that way too. I use lightroom to adjust the color levels a bit and remove blemishes but that's about it. I never know if I should do more post processing or not but my preference has always been to stay away from doing too much. Even with my landscape or architecture photos, I always prefer to use filters and various techniques to get the shot the way I want it with the camera. I have aspirations to be a good photographer, not a digital artist.

Your critique was very helpful. You definitely do not need to tone anything down. Thank you again for all your help, it is of much value to me.

Originally Posted by drummingpariah

I wish everybody would critique like you just did. Thoughtful, provoking, and honest (in an oddly intimate kind of way, I thought).

Back to Corey's shot:
I love the lighting, I'd try to keep the same effect on the face, but add definition to the hair (I'd try adding little more light on the wall to outline the top of his hair's silhouette). The shadowed side of his face has a beautiful, crisp outline that I'd be cautious of losing if you add a little fill light to that side of his face.

Lastly, if you're going to fill the shot with as much of the shirt you chose, I'd use a more textured cloth or light the shirt to bring out that texture. The lower half of the picture is detracting from the effectiveness of this shot because of it.

That's really all my amateur eye has caught right now, so I also hope this helps and doesn't lead you in the wrong direction.
-Jesse

Thanks Jesse for your feedback. Lighting the hair is something I've been struggling with in each of my shots. I'm not really sure how to get more light on the hair with the equipment I have. I'll keep trying different things with each week's shot that I do. It's hard with only one speedlite. I'm wishing I had two or three speedlights, one key, one fill, and one for the hair. I think Zach Arias used to do a one light workshop? I'm wishing I would have taken advantage of that because working with one light can be quite a struggle at times.

[doctorjames]

Originally Posted by Corey Thompson

Should the lightest part of the image be the eyes and cheeks? Would a simple remedy be to not shoot straight on and if I do, move the light so that the ear and neck line don't get exposed the most?

Generally the part of the portrait you are trying to draw attention to, or the features you want to make interesting need to have the most contrast, rather than just being lighter. You might want to make an issue out of someones incredible eyebrows for example, so they wouldnt be light, but the contrast in that area would draw your eyes to the feature.

The Ear certainly appear to be the area of the portrait with the most contrast to me. I suspect that the neck is actually 'lighter' and probably the left cheek is actually the lightest or brightest part of the photo, but the areas surrounding are similar skin tones, so the change is more gradual, and less 'contrasty', so you see what I mean?..

Originally Posted by Corey Thompson

Good question on the histogram. That reminds me, I need to turn the histogram back on in my camera settings.

I find the histogram essential in checking what I have shot when I strobe, as I do not use ANY metering. I shoot in full manual and review the results until I have what I want to acheive. You could also try shooting without the flash, so see what ambient light is doing to your subject at your chosen shutter speed and aperture, before you add in the strobe. That way you know what is going to be lit, and to what extend before you add the confusion of a strobe or two to the equation. Not terribly useful here as I dont think you had much ambient light, but I could be wrong.

Originally Posted by Corey Thompson

I'm not sure why I didn't use a reflector in this shot. I've been consistently trying to use a reflector in my shots but for whatever reason, probably laziness, I stopped using it towards the end of this shoot, which was when this shot was taken. I don't have a second light unfortunately.

a second light/strobe will give you a lot more flexibility, a third even more, and a fourth even more so, and so on and so on...... but seriously, have a look at how much a set of cheap (I use the pixel soldier) wireless trigger/receivers and a cheap chinese flash will cost you. I bought the f58AM sony top of the range flash, which is lovely, and does off camera TTL e.t.c. but now find I use it almost exclusively in MANUAL (just like the camera) and have a second and much cheaper (1/6th the cost) YN560 which I use as a second strobe. I bet you could get the flash, triggers, light stand, and umbrella set up for less than $200, (it cost me ~ £150). You wouldnt believe the flexibility this now gives me, as I now have 3 light sources, ambient, strobe 1 and strobe 2. Just for the record, I dont have shares in YN

Originally Posted by Corey Thompson

I'm not so good with using a shoot through umbrella. Everytime I've tried using one it was like letting off a light grenade in the room. It always lights up everything in my photos. Is there a trick to using one without it lighting up everything? Should I turn the power way down and move it in as close as possible to the subject?

It sounds like you are powering up the flash a little too high. You can get in real close, and turn the power way down like you say. Remember the inverse square law?.... all you need to remember to start with is that a little less distance with flash = a lot less power required. You can end up placing the umbrella literally inches from the subject, rather than feet. To do this it needs to be a shoot through rather than a reflective umbrella. The less power you use to light your subject, the less power you are lighting your surroundings with, and generally the closer to the subject you are, the further you are away from stuff you dont want to light.

Originally Posted by Corey Thompson

Thank you for pointing this out. I tend to get so caught up in all the technical details that I forget to pay attention to who this subject is and how I can capture that in a photo. Thomas is a car mechanic who is just starting off in the field. Perhaps in a future photo I can get him to wear his uniform and hold a torque wrench over his shoulder.

Im not sure if you meant that tongue in cheek, . You probably had had enough of my critique by then. Why not shoot him in the garage (or what ever you call car workshops in the US)? Its his native environment, so should look natural, without the need for props like a torque wrench! This goes back to having more lighting flexibility. you could light him without lighting the backdrop, so not diverting attention from him to his workplace, but still setting the scene.

Originally Posted by Corey Thompson

It's good to come across another person who prefers not to go overboard with Photoshop. I barely even know how to use Photoshop. I kind of prefer to keep it that way too. I use lightroom to adjust the color levels a bit and remove blemishes but that's about it. I never know if I should do more post processing or not but my preference has always been to stay away from doing too much. Even with my landscape or architecture photos, I always prefer to use filters and various techniques to get the shot the way I want it with the camera. I have aspirations to be a good photographer, not a digital artist.

+1 on all of that, you put it much better than I did, but that is exactly how I feel, and am trying to behave. I have tried the digital artist thing, and it gets boring pretty quick.

Originally Posted by Corey Thompson

Your critique was very helpful. You definitely do not need to tone anything down. Thank you again for all your help, it is of much value to me.

It was a lot to write, and a lot to read for you and others. I suspect that not many people read it. I also suspect that of the minority that did read it, most thought that I was 'up my own arse' as they say (or ass). Perhaps that is an english expression that doesnt travel well.

I am really pleased to help. It is not often that I write that much, usually because the expected reply goes along the lines of "your wrong". "I like it anyway" or "so how do I fix it in photoshop", so was refreshing to see you react so constructively. It is a pity that you are the other side of a country which is an ocean away from me, or we could see if anything I have said would actually make the shot or at least the theme better face to face. Its always nice to bounce ideas, and not just the flash.

James

[drummingpariah]

Originally Posted by doctorjames

Im not sure if you meant that tongue in cheek, . You probably had had enough of my critique by then. Why not shoot him in the garage (or what ever you call car workshops in the US)? Its his native environment, so should look natural, without the need for props like a torque wrench! This goes back to having more lighting flexibility. you could light him without lighting the backdrop, so not diverting attention from him to his workplace, but still setting the scene.

I love this idea. Some of my favorite photos are in this vein, and garages tend to be chalk full of character. My top 5 favorite photographers all shoot for the Speedhunters website, and I've seen some truly breathtaking shots inside garages there. I often find that a little inspiration goes a long way, so go ahead and check out some of the posts here:
Speedhunters

At the risk of threadjacking, I'm going to add a couple examples from Speedhunters. Let me know if you'd prefer that I take them back out:


and one of my favorites (despite my disdain for smoking):

[Corey Thompson]

James -
Good suggestion on shooting without the flash to see what ambient light is doing. I'll try this for my next shot.

I agree about the histogram. It's definitely helpful, I just forget to use it from time to time. I had it enabled for awhile but I was doing night shots with light trails not too long ago and the histogram was giving me funky readings with clipped highlights and shadows, so I disabled it and then forgot about it altogether (doh!). With the exception to using autofocus, I also shoot in full manual with the camera and my speedlite. Every once in awhile I'll switch to aperture priority or shutter priority but not too often.

The YN flashes are by YongNuo, right? I'll give this some serious consideration. After seeing how limiting one speedlite can be, I don't see any harm in picking up a cheap strobe for hair light or fill light.

I have a lot to think about. I just wish my creativity was a little stronger when it comes to portraits. I'm still trying to come up with a concept for my week 5 shot. I definitely want to experiment with the shoot through more. I'll work on a concept for an alternative shot of Thomas. No tongue in cheek intended by shooting him with his uniform on and a torque wrench. I was just thinking of alternatives in case if his boss doesn't approve of me doing a shot in their garage. I don't think it should be a problem though. I'll see what I can arrange for a future shot.

I really appreciate how you took all the time to respond to my thread. It's very difficult finding good advice on message forums. I hope that others find this thread useful and take the time to read what was written. There's a lot of good, solid advice here. Although it's nice to receive compliments on photos to boost ego, that's rarely my intention for posting examples of my work here. I'm like an information sponge. I don't have the spare cash to go to a photography school. Resources such as DPS are my only way of learning. I only hope to learn from those much more experienced then me so that I can some day rise to that level and return the favor for all those just starting out.

BTW, I wouldn't mind being closer to your side of the world. I'm sure my fiancee would agree too

Originally Posted by drummingpariah

I love this idea. Some of my favorite photos are in this vein, and garages tend to be chalk full of character. My top 5 favorite photographers all shoot for the Speedhunters website, and I've seen some truly breathtaking shots inside garages there. I often find that a little inspiration goes a long way, so go ahead and check out some of the posts here:
Speedhunters

At the risk of threadjacking, I'm going to add a couple examples from Speedhunters. Let me know if you'd prefer that I take them back out:

I don't mind at all. Thanks for the link and for the inspiration.

[doctorjames]

Originally Posted by Corey Thompson

The YN flashes are by YongNuo, right? I'll give this some serious consideration. After seeing how limiting one speedlite can be, I don't see any harm in picking up a cheap strobe for hair light or fill light.

Yep thats right, YongNuo. Here is the one I have:

eBay - The UK's Online Marketplace

not trying to sell it, just for your information !

James