An Old Dog Learning New Tricks

As I mentioned yesterday, I've been trying to learn studio photography by various means, including watching videos, reading books, attending workshops, using past (limited) experience and by trial and error. In my mind, I have made considerable progress in terms of learning how to properly light subjects, posing, use of props, and developing a style.

Just like with sports photography, I think it's important to develop a style that is unique...one that people can recognize and immediately think, "That was taken by Olivella." I developed a certain style after years of sports photography, or at least so I'm told by FSU and other clients. If you've seen my sports images, my style involves more than action shots, it's looking for what most others seem to overlook and using lenses beyond the usual 400mm f2.8 and the 80-200mm f2.8.

I've been trying to do the same in the studio. The first couple of photos posted above were of my female offspring unit, my studio guinea pig if you will, taken shortly after I moved stuff into the studio. I asked her to sit for me so I could test out my lights but I found it difficult to tell her how to pose because I hadn't had to pose anyone in a long, long time. It was a learning experience to say the least and I didn't try to do anything but get a couple of decent portraits, which is what I thought I would be concentrating on as far as studio shoots in the future.



With that run through as an inital test, my next victim was a friend of a friend, the maestra for the Tallahassee Symphony who wanted a new head shot for promotional materials. I was more than happy to oblige, viewing the opportunity as a way of getting some more hands on experience with the lights, backgrounds, posing, props, etc. At the time I thought I did a fairly credible job with the images, but looking at them now I realize I made a huge mistake in the context of a formal portrait - I used the key light on the wrong side of her face. After that shoot, I learned that for formal portraits, the key light should light the left side of the face with the shadow side on the right. Oops.

What I also learned during this shoot is that formal portrait photography did not spin my wheels, so to speak. As I discovered, it's a very technical, follow-the-rules kind of photography. Subjects are posed in certain positions, lighting is set up in a specific manner - I'm just not a follow-the-rules kind of person. I've always believed that when it comes to creativity, rules are good guidelines but they should not be adhered to in all instances. I wanted my images to be more than just portraits and felt a desire to push the envelope.

Next up was Nichole. This is when I began to really see that there were things I could in the studio that went beyond standard portraits. For this shoot, I did very little "posing" of Nichole. I made a few suggestions, such as turn this way, tilt your head a little, try moving your hands to this position and the like, but basically I just told her to move around and have fun as I fired away when I saw something that caught my eye. As far as lighting, I used a 4'X7' softbox on my right and a 2'X3' softbox on my left to create fairly even lighting with a slight relative difference given the different sized softboxes - the right one obviously threw out more light from top to bottom since it was considerably larger and the contours of her face created shadows here and there. So what if her positioning gave way to flat lighting or if the high key lighting was on the wrong side.

 

 

Now this was fun. I tried head shots, 3/4 body shots, full length shots...we even cranked up a fan just to try different things. Nichole was fantastic. You'd never know she had never modeled or posed for a shoot. Before we finished, we tried one more thing, something I had thought of before the shoot after I found out she was a professional ballerina - using a little Photoshop and Nichole's dance skills, we came up with...

The shoot, and especially the last shot (above) was like a light switch going on in my head, except I wasn't quite sure where the light was taking me. I just knew that coming up with a concept and executing it was more fun than I ever dreamed. I decided that from then on, I would come up with ideas/concepts before a shoot and try to execute them, as opposed to just going into the studio and doing the same thing over and over again.

And then along came Dyani, an experienced model who wanted to update her portfolio. Dyani can have a very hard edge, but I also saw a softness that could be captured. The bulk of her portfolio shots were hard, tough, a style to which she seems to gravitate while posing. I decided to concentrate on showing her soft side, if only to provide her with a completely different look for her portfolio. I used the same lighting set up as for Nichole as well as the "just move around and have fun" style of posing, but with pre-planned setups.

I learned something different after this shoot...I am not comfortable pushing the envelope in terms of risqueness. Although Dyani was fully clothed for all her shots, I had made an effort to create the illusion that she was nude under the sheets in various images. Although I believe the images are beautiful, a little voice in my head told me that I needed to dial things down some and concentrate more on beauty rather than the illusion of nudity.

Then came Jaimie, a chance to create images sophisticated and senuous without pushing the envelope as far as I had gone with Dyani. Jaimie wanted to have some fun, so we tried different looks and different things. Again, I used the same lighting set up as before as well as the same posing technique - essentially, just move around and have fun. In a manner of speaking, I proved to myself that I could create visually exciting images without feeling uncomfortable.

As an experiment, I used Photoshop on some of the images and tried to create an edgy look. Just a way of exploring options in my quest to develop a style. Interestingly, I found that I liked taking a somewhat ordinary image, playing around with it, and coming up with something much different.

I know the images above are not everyone's cup of tea, but I was more interested in creating striking images. Given the reaction that they have gotten, one thing is for sure - they are striking and a far cry from the first efforts in the studio.

Next up was Tarin and another portfolio update. Same lighting technique, same posing direction or lack thereof. Before the shoot, we talked about certain concepts that we would try to execute. I had also seen Tarin's portfolio and noticed a similar pattern as that which I had seen with Dyani - not a lot of soft or sophisticated type images. We tried some themes and also did the sophisticated sensuous thing but without going anywhere near as far as I went with Dyani.

Last but not least, we tried one more thing...something which I have come to find out actually has a name - High Concept Photograhy, the style I have apparently been gravitating towards without knowing it existed.

I posted this image on Facebook shortly after I finished the Photoshop process and I couldn't believe how many people contacted me and asked where they could get a 7-foot martini glass for shoots. I thought it would be assumed by all that it was just a layered image, one image of the martini glass and an image of Tarin, who was able to balance herself on the floor in a "V" shape with her arms positioned in such a way as to simulate how they would be if she were actually sitting in a martini glass. A little playing around with the Transform edit feature of Photoshop, resizing of the martini glass to fit Tarin, selective blending and layering of the two images, and voila.

My last shoot was of Alyssa, a sports broadcaster for a local TV station. As I have been trying to do, I went into the shoot with certain thoughts and ideas as to "looks" and tried to implement them - the very definition of High Concept Photography. One of the things I wanted to try this time was a lighting technique with which I had experimented years ago but which was much more refined by a friend of mine (Scott Kelby) in one of his shoots. Over the Christmas holidays, I picked up a 22" beauty dish to use as a key light for glamour shots and this was the perfect light modifier for the kind of lighting I wanted to use. I set up the backlighting so that the light would wrap around Alyssa's face from the rear and to make sure the white background was blown out.

I positioned the beauty dish directly behind me and over my head at a 45 degree angle downward towards Alyssa. For the first few shots, I tried a silver reflector below her face, angled up, to eliminate the shadow created by the beauty dish on the neck and torso (Scott used a reflector during his shoot to reduce the shadow so I gave it a go) but I was not happy with the results. So, I positioned a third light in place of the reflector (same position) and attached a 2'X2' softbox to it. Much better - shadows were almost gone. We used this lighting for the shots above as well as the one below.

I also went back to my traditional set up using the 4'X7' and 2'X3' softboxes at 45 degrees (on either side) to get some different shots of Alyssa, using various wigs and props to create different beauty-type images.

So there you have it. My transformation in the studio in terms of style and proficiency as of today. As I said, I really enjoy what can be done in the studio and seem to have found a style that is comfortable for me. I have lots more ideas in store for future shoots and I continue to refine my lighting skills. Currently, I am shifting things around in the studio to vary the type of lighting I can create. I've added some backdrops, some more lights, a 5' Octagon softbox, props, etc. and hope to begin shooting again soon. More to come.

Technical Stuff - I have been using my D3 at ISO 100 with the f stops varying between f5.6 and f8. Shutter speed has varied from 1/60th second to 1/250th depending on how bright I want the background to be (the slower the shutter spped the more ambient light is picked up and the brighter the background appears in the image). White balance is set on flash, shutter set to single shots and exposure at Manual. I have a flash meter which I have been using to set the correct exposure, and one mistake I made early on (and repeated until recently) was not trusting the meter. Sometimes it woudl tell me to use f5.6 and I would use something else, depending on what I saw on the back of the camera or on the TV to which I am tethered. Bad mistake. I have learned to trust the meter, not what I am seeing on the displays while shooting.

I am currently setting up my lights/studio as an f8 studio when going the conventional route (classically lit images)). I've debated between f11 and f8 and have decided to go with f8 for the time being. Since I use my gear outdoors most of the time, the sensors and the lenses are exposed to dust and crap all the time. I just don't have the time to constantly remove every speck of crud from the gear. Shooting at f11 exposes every bit of crap in the way of spots, etc., and f8 does so to a lesser degree. I would love to shoot at f11 as it gives me more flexibility in terms of light ratios on the fill side but, I will try f8 for now and see if it is a good compromise - less dramatic lighting options but less cleaning up in Photoshop.

As an f8 studio, the key light on high key images will always be at f8 with the fill light at varying lower settings, depending on the amount of shadow I want on the fill side (using light ratios). For a standard type image, the fill would be at f4 or 2.8. For more dramatic lighting, I can simply turn the fill light off. I have a hair light in place overhead with a 20 degree honeycomb grid and when in use it is set to give me the same f stop setting as the fill light. I now have two background lights (again, for high key shots) which will be set to the same f-stop as the key light (f8). They are positioned on opposite sides to each other slightly angled towards the opposite side of the backdrop (in a slight criss-cross manner. These lights have 5' strip softboxes on them to avoid any light spilling forward onto the subject. I'm still playing with them as I am not finished setting them up, trying to decide whether to use the diffusers.

The key light will primarily have my 22" beauty dish attached but the 2'X3' softbox is another option. So is the 5' Octagon. The beauty dish has a diffuser covering the front and it will be moved around depending on what kind of shadow pattern I want to create on the subjects (butterfly, loop or Rembrandt). At a recent workshop, I learned a trick to avoid having to constantly re-meter the key light - by using a yard stick positioned at the center of the diffuser and extending it so it touches the subject's face, I do not have to change the power setting on the light - just move the light until it is exactly one yard away from the high key cheek.

The above is all intended to be used when the image will be in a sitting/standing stationary pose. If I'm going to do the "move around and have fun" posing, the 5' Octagon softbox stands ready on one side (left) and the 4'X7' softbox will be on the other. I will probably use the octagon as the key light with the rectangular one as the fill, setting the octagon to meter at f8.

All of this is still a work in progress as I have been shuffling things around to try this method out. I'm looking forward to the first shoot to test all of this out.