Improvements? Studio Portrait Lighting

[TracyyAnn]

Hi! This is my first time posting, so I hope im doing this all right.

I was in Japan this last summer and took a 4 hour seminar on studio portrait lighting and took this shot:



I was using a Canon T2i, f/9 or f/11 I believe? and 1/100 shutter speed? And there was a softbox and hair light.

Is there a way I could make improvements to this photograph? Maybe try to add more light to the eye area? Any advice would be wonderful! Thanks!

[kelleyrie]

I'm don't know much about studio lighting but I would definitely like more light in her eyes, maybe the softbox was a bit too high? The shadows aren't flattering there. Also the bright spot on her forehead and nose makes her look a bit sweaty.

[Doug Sundseth]

Using basically the same setup for the first two lights, I'd add a fill light low camera right, down 1-3 stops from your key light. I'd probably start with a shoot-through umbrella, but make sure that you're not getting too much light where you don't want it, since umbrellas are pretty indiscriminate. I'd also reduce the exposure by around a stop.

I'd also consider using a bit of powder to kill the specular highlights on the forehead, nose, and above and below the left eye.

I'd probably move the crop line either above the top of the head or closer to the hairline, so that the crop looks a bit more intentional.

Finally, I'd play with the pose, rotating the shoulders left and right and up and down, as well as playing with the tilt of the head. Once you have the setup, try a bunch of minor variations to give yourself more to choose from.

[zona5101]

I think the lighting and exposure is good. The loop on her nose tells me the light position was good. You don't want the end of the loop touching her lip - and it doesn't. You could have lowered it a bit but really she just needed to raise her chin a little. That would have put the catch light more predominantly in her upper eye and reduced some of the shadow in the eye socket.
Alternatively, you could have added some fill... and if you had another light or reflector for fill I probably would have changed the main to directly overhead and shot clam shell lighting.

The top of the hair is cut off but it appears your hair light was ok, maybe a tad forward but in general it is effective in giving the hair accent. having it back a touch may have provided a bit of rim lighting to the shoulders as well as the hair accent.

Overall well done and only needing a few tweaks.