My ghetto portrait studio shot

[AlphaBjerke]

Hello,

I decided to see what I could do with a black sheet, one flash, and an umbrella in my garage. I am really trying to learn as much as possible about portrait photography, so I appreciate any advice, which means, BE HARD ON ME!


I only had one light. I tried to use a reflector to put some light from the rear to give separation from the background, but it didn't seem to make any difference. So I ditched the reflector.

My question is, did I choose a good place to have the light come from? It was, as you can tell, on camera right about 45 degrees and slightly pointing UP at the subject. Most of the time, I see that people put that single light pointing DOWN at the subject, but I wanted to make sure there was light in the eyes.

Anything I could have done different, given the tools I had at my disposal?



90mm
ISO 200
f5.6
SS 160

Thanks!

[WooD]

Looks nice to me, but viewing the image full size it appears you also used an on camera flash.

There are 2 catch lights in each eye, one dead center.

[Benji]

Not too shabby, but I prefer the 1-3-2 pose over the 1-2-2 as you have shown. See below as to how to use a reflector for a single light portrait.

Benji

[WooD]

Originally Posted by Benji

Not too shabby, but I prefer the 1-3-2 pose over the 1-2-2 as you have shown. See below as to how to use a reflector for a single light portrait.

Benji

For the people that have no idea what a 1-3-2 pose is.

The 1-3-2 Posing Technique - PhotoCamel - Your Friendly Photo Forum

[AlphaBjerke]

Originally Posted by WooD

Looks nice to me, but viewing the image full size it appears you also used an on camera flash.

There are 2 catch lights in each eye, one dead center.

Yes, Wood, my on-camera flash triggers my flash. I had heard people say you need to put a piece of film over it to take it out of the equation, but I had never noticed that it had an effect. Thanks for pointing that out! I will look at fixing that in the future.

Originally Posted by Benji

Not too shabby, but I prefer the 1-3-2 pose over the 1-2-2 as you have shown. See below as to how to use a reflector for a single light portrait.

Benji

I will go back later and see about the 1-3-2 versus the 1-2-2, thanks for the opinion and thanks for the link.

[WooD]

Originally Posted by AlphaBjerke

Yes, Wood, my on-camera flash triggers my flash. I had heard people say you need to put a piece of film over it to take it out of the equation, but I had never noticed that it had an effect. Thanks for pointing that out! I will look at fixing that in the future.

I don't think it's a problem at all, or took away from your image. If anything it probably added some nice fill light.

[ShepherdLady]

Originally Posted by WooD

For the people that have no idea what a 1-3-2 pose is.

The 1-3-2 Posing Technique - PhotoCamel - Your Friendly Photo Forum

I really wanted to see these poses, but I am unable to, unless I join PhotoCamel....

[dishingthedivine]

shepherd lady - I have never heard of these either, but if you scroll down a bit on the link above, you'll get some ideas of what they're talking about. Basically, it seems that you're turning the body 45 degrees away from the camera, the head back in the other direction and having the eyes pointing toward the middle. Experts out there - am I close? Maybe you can give us some photo examples of this. You can't see them on photocamel unless you join. Surely you have one or two that you could show us!

[wanelad]

Well if one thing avoiding joining camel did it got me committed to finding something and this site provided some great tips Benji's Tutorials - The Rules of Good Portraiture

[BobC]

Can you show a diaghram of the lighing, subject & camera relationship?