My third and final photographic exercise last weekend took place in the early hours of Sunday morning, after the cattle had gone to sleep and the couch had been vacated for the night. My brother Conor, who had earlier acted as a voice-activated lightstand, needed a head shot done for the programme of the upcoming tour of the European Youth Orchestra, with which he will be playing.
It was late, so we wanted to get the shot done quickly. Also, as it was late, there was no natural light to speak of, so the photo would be lit entirely by flash. That suited – it meant all the lighting was under my control.
I had earlier decided on a narrow piece of wall in the kitchen which is free from any fixtures or fittings to form as the backdrop for the photo. The wall is painted magnolia, but firing some light at it would allow it go a very light grey in the final black and white photo that Conor needed.
Because this was to be a tight headshot, I could let Conor sit down – it would be more comfortable for him, and disguise the fact (that he likes to remind me of every now and then) that he is a good 2 inches taller than me!
In recent weeks I’ve done a couple of head shots of Leticia and Aoife, but the lighting style for females differs to that for males – although for a standard head shot it need not be a dramatic difference.
I employed a three light approach, but used one for the background (having tried and dismissed a rim light) and so had two lights lighting Conor. Between starting and finishing, the main light and the fill light actually switched places, mainly due to my reviewing of the shots as we went along on the LCD screen – a practice called “chimping” because, it’s said, when a photographers get a shot they like and views it on the LCD screen, they make a noise like a chimpanzee – “oooh, oooh, oooh look at this one…”
In the end I used an SB-600 through my trusty shoot through umbrella at camera left to give a nice soft main light, with an SB-800 in a similar setup at camera right, with the ratio a little less than 1:1, to make it the fill light. With that settled, it was just a matter of waiting for Conor to strike the right pose, and I could finally head off to bed, a productive day of photography complete.
Recent Comments