Portrait of the (make-up) Artist

I spent much of yesterday evening in the studio with some other photographers as we were given a masterclass in some of the secrets of lighting by Paul Timon, who is consistently producing great images, most often of Dublin’s theatrical scene, and who was certainly able to teach us all something we didn’t know.

For the studio session, Paul had arranged for a model, Donna, to sit for us.  Donna showed great patience with us photographers, given that we all wanted to take shots of her for each of the five lighting setups Paul was demonstrating.  She works during the day as a make-up artist, and has worked with Paul in the past as a model for his portraiture experiments in lighting.

One thing that was clear about Paul’s own photographic exploits was that, despite being very capable as a portrait photographer, he is continually educating himself and practicing new aspects of his photography, and his ever-improving images show that this is a path worth following.

The particular lighting setup used in this photograph is known as profile lighting, simply because it shows the subject in profile.  We tried three different lighting modifiers for the single light that was out of frame at camera right (and which Donna is facing – she was almost blinded by it by the time we had all taken our shots!).  First we used a softbox to soften the light, next we snooted the bare bulb to produce a much harder light – a snoot is a cone that restricts the beam of light – and finally a honeycomb grid was used to give a somewhat softer yet directional light, midway between the other two.  I liked the end result from that last effect, and that is the image you see here.  As usual I post processed in Aperture, having shot in RAW as I always do now.  For this photo, post processing was limited to minor tweaks of the contrast.

Incidentally, the composition here is Paul’s suggestion – by putting Donna at the left of frame, you avoid the need to light the back of her head, and the negative space to her right gives her something to look into in the picture, and I would agree that it makes for a good composition.