Back to the studio...

[jetrim]

These are a couple from last Thursday night of Rebeca another photographer that was there. I *think* I'm finally starting to make good on my PR New Year's resolution to learn and understand lighting

[shootme]

Love the B&W and how you have captured the light in the eyes. I would have maybe had a darker background to make her pop on the shot more. I don't know that much about portrait shots so I can really advise more than that. Cheers, S.

[jetrim]

Thanks Shootme. I have some where the light falls off more quickly giving a darker background, but with the dark hair, it's a tricky balance to maintain. Regarding the catchlights... yeah, amazing how nice they come out when you have an $11,000.00 parabolic reflector to play with

[GB1]

jet - The bottom shot looks close to what you would see in an ad, and that's a good thing. I do think that it's still a tad bit hot on that side of her face though; just reduce it a little bit and it will be right. Great smile and MU on the model.

The B&W doesn't work for me for some reason(s). Hard to describe, but it seems pixelated/unclear and 'not quite there', meaning somewhat faded out. Her smile and pose is OK here but I think her cheeks are too hot. I also think the crop leans towards the bad side: I want to see more of her arm and think that you should have cropped a little below her breastline instead of hitting it. As you can see, the little stuff is so important in glamour and fashion......

G

[draymorton]

I love what you've done in the last image. Was a beauty dish used on the main light? Did you use the surface blur method for the skin?

[jetrim]

GB upon reflection, I agree with your assessment of the B&W. There were a couple forces at work here:
1) The lighting set up was a reverse triangle so there was an ever so slight presence of flare from the two rear softboxes (not nearly as obvious in B&W but apparently obvious enough!)
2) The arm was just bad composition on my part
3) This girl WOULD NOT put her damn camera down, no matter how much we asked. As it was I cloned a pocket wizzard out of her right breast in this shot. The original falls where you suggest, but she was not a model, just another photographer.

Dray,
Yep last shot was a beauty light (single source) and this was actually a candid while she talked with one of the studio guys. I actually did very little corrective work on the skin, though I did remove some pockmarks from her forehead in all shots. She actually had really good skin and shine free makeup on.

Here's a third shot just to show GB my lighting isn't ALWAYS hot :lol:
This uses the big 220 parabolic (front) 150x150 softbox on boom (hairlight overhead) and 20 degree gridded spot (on the backwall)