FWIW I agree with Larry about the wrinkled backdrop. The Shirt color
doesn't bother me and I know nothing about studio lighting but I think
her face stands out nicely, pose and expression great overall effective
shot.
pdml-requ...@pdml.net wrote:
Message: 11 Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 18:33:27 -0700 From: Larry Colen
<l...@red4est.com> To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List <pdml@pdml.net> Subject:
Re: PESO Portrait of Sophie Message-ID:
<20130820013327.ga29...@platypus.gruk.net> Content-Type: text/plain;
charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 08:59:34PM -0400, Bruce Walker
wrote:
>A straight-forward "studio" portrait of my niece, Sophie. Shot on
>location in my sister's living room (she's a champ to put up with me
>rearranging the whole thing).
>
>http://flic.kr/p/fy42fh
>
>I was also testing my latest money-saving invention: $10 IKEA
>background support system. Ingredients: One Hugad black curtain rod,
>210-385 cm; 2x Betydlig curtain rod brackets, top-slot filed out to
>fit 1/4" stud on top of light stand; use with two cheap 8' light
>stands.
That sounds a lot like something I've done.
>
>K20D, DA* 50-135/2.8 @ 90mm/f:5, 1/160th, ISO 100;
>Lr + Ps + Nik + Portraiture
>
>Paramount short lighting with reflector fill. AF540FGZ in Westcott
>Medium Apollo above-left, key; AF540FGZ in 30" umbrella softbox,
>boomed above behind-right, hair; 42" silver reflector, right.
>
>Comments welcome!
The lighting is damn near perfect.
There are a few things that I think you might have done differently,
advice that is worth approximately what it's costing you.
1) The dark green shirt is too close in color to the grey background.
I think that a red, or maroon sweater would have worked a lot better.
Alternatively, maybe some rim lighting would have set it off.
2) I find the creases on the backdrop distracting. The ideal situation
would involve a room two or three times the size of the one you had,
where you could move the backdrop far enough away that it would have
been either totally out of focus, unlit, or both.
Alternatively, if there is any way you could have used gobos to keep
most of the light off the backdrop and just hit it with a spot
behind Sophie, to add contrast, then you'd only need a small unwrinkled
area of background. That could have also set off the sweater.
To prevent the distracting creases like those, I do one of two things.
I will either store a backdrop rolled up on a 10' section of ABS
so that it is smooth, and has no creases. Or I will store it wadded up
in a bin, so that it is covered by random wrinkles, with no distracting
patterns.
Although, what I usually really do is just make sure that my lights
are much closer to my model than the background, and ideally not even
hitting the backgound, because if you can't see the backdrop, then you
can't see the creases.
>
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>
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