Bad Girls

First of all, I have to say I'm getting humbled trying to use lighting with the ladies. It's really hard. But it's good to have to work hard and know I have a lot to learn. I feel like I've got the mountain bike stuff pretty wired. Of course that's not true. But compared to the modeling photos, it is.

So the intent here was to get photos of trashy-looking girls wearing these T-shirts. This shoot was sort of a test. I thought I could control the background better but I was wrong. I took Steve's suggestion from last time about using both of my 550s as one light source. That works very well. These are also heavily processed to minimize the background, smooth out the girl's skin, and make them look more pink.

Go ahead now - tell me how I suck.

I'm no studio lighting pro, but one thing I liked about the Mesmerized photos (the post from the other day) was that although some said the light could be softenened, you had Rembrandt lighting, which I don't see in this shot.

Why did you decide against that type of lighting?

I like the the thin ribbon of light along the woman-on-the-right's torso. The same type of light is on the model on the left, but it looks different somehow. Did you manipulate that?

At first I thought I didn't like the background, but now that I look at it some more, I don't mind it so much.

Perhaps it's because it reminds me of my underage drinking years when my best friend and I would meet at her house and then retreat to her cramped little bedroom where we would perform our Friday night primping rituals: smoke cigarrettes, apply LOTS of makeup, get our hair to practically stand on end with liberal dousings of hairspray (this was the 80s afterall), try on 10 different outfits before finally choosing one, and then we'd leave to go meet up with our friends in the band.

If that room is *their* environment, I give it a thumbs up because it reveals a little bit more about who they are and what they might be like.

How/why did you hope to minimize it?

I also like the shine on the leather pants and the women's facial expressions & postures.

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Originally Posted by Photo-John

First of all, I have to say I'm getting humbled trying to use lighting with the ladies. It's really hard. But it's good to have to work hard and know I have a lot to learn. I feel like I've got the mountain bike stuff pretty wired. Of course that's not true. But compared to the modeling photos, it is.

So the intent here was to get photos of trashy-looking girls wearing these T-shirts. This shoot was sort of a test. I thought I could control the background better but I was wrong. I took Steve's suggestion from last time about using both of my 550s as one light source. That works very well. These are also heavily processed to minimize the background, smooth out the girl's skin, and make them look more pink.

Go ahead now - tell me how I suck.

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It may just be that I am looking at this on a better screen than the one I myself own, but I have to wonder if this is a different version all together. If not then it sure looks better to me now than it did yesterday. Did you remove it from the view finder forum? And if so why?

almo

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Originally Posted by almo

It may just be that I am looking at this on a better screen than the one I myself own, but I have to wonder if this is a different version all together. If not then it sure looks better to me now than it did yesterday. Did you remove it from the view finder forum? And if so why?

almo

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Ahhh haaa! I just found it again. I must be half asleep. Anyway it would seem that it is the same image. I stand by my inital impression, but I nevertheless like it a little better than before. Man I need to buy a new screen. Mine bites the big one. You should see it, one whole row of pixles are just blanked out.

I don't really feel all that qualified to speak to the lighting concerns of your image, as I shoot primarily with avalible light, but I think it looks ok. Not of advertisment quality imo, but it stands apart from the average snap of two girls in a livingroom. It definitely has a life of its own. With the touch of an outside director.

almo

I'm not claiming I know what I'm doing here. That's why I posted it on this forum. I'm learning, though. The next ones will be better.

I don't kno wcrap about lighting...but I wondered if you had tried to maybe desaturate the background a bit to still aloow the elements of a living environment to show thru while having the girls be the focus...I think your lighting looked great for the intention of hwat you were doing...maybe for next time...change the indoor(lamps and overhead fiztures) bulbs in the room to a color(red or blue) to wash the room ina color but still maintain them with natural tones...just my two uneducated cents
;)

Ok, I realize that many of the nice, slightly insecure people on this site like to add "just my two cents" to their posts to temper any perception that they're being too opinionated.

That's all well and good, but I think you're certainly one of the ones that have been around long enough to be above starting your post with "I don't know crap..."

As it turns out, I think you DO know crap about some of this... :D :D

The thing is, you don't have to know the nuts and bolts of lighting to be able to say why you think elements of a shot do or do not work. The only difference is that you probably don't know what suggestions to give to change things for the better.

In case, I completely agree with you...

John, another good attempt, but there are a couple of things that bother me about this shot. One, even with your "processing", I think the bg is too HOT. Also too sharp.

As nat points out, I think two simply ways to improve this shot would be to throw a color cast on the bg and to throw the bg more out of focus...

Also, all due respect, to me it looks overshopped, almost like the clone tool run amok bordering on Polaroid manipulation.

The attitude and posing of the models is good (and believe me, that's every bit as important as the lighting), but I also think the cropping seems a bit awkward. Sure that's a personal thing, but when I shoot wide angle, I either like REALLY REALLY tight or some space around the models. This seems caught in the middle...

Any more shots form this shoot?

PJ,

All I can say is that the lighting looks really flat to me, as if the strobes were mounted on your camera when shooting vertically... I think moving them more off-axis to crate more shadow would have helped.

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Originally Posted by Photo-John

I'm not claiming I know what I'm doing here. That's why I posted it on this forum. I'm learning, though. The next ones will be better.

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Master! Be careful or you will begin to look like the rest of us!.....lol JK!

:D :D :D

Lots of good ideas here. And I humbly accept all of them. Nat's suggestion for colored bulbs is good. That definitely would have miniized the background. I had it as soft as was possible under the circumstances - f/2.8 with an f/2.8 20mm lens. I tried using my 50mm but there wasn't enough room for it most of the time. And I actually ran a little gaussian blur on the background, too. I think the biggest lesson for me here is that I need a lot more control over the location. I can't assume I can make it work. Not for this type of photo, anyway.

John, here's my quick reply....

They look bored to death. And the appearance of boredom pretty much sucks all the goodness out of your goal (making them look trashy).

Is it just the lighting you want critique for? if so, I apologize......but I've at least given you my first reaction. I like the lighting but don't know why....I know that's an awful critique but like Steve said above .... that's my 2 cents :)

Hope this helps, and can't wait to see the imprvoed version.

I'd love to see some hispanic women wearing those mamacita shirts! Any chance of that?

Trevor

I see huhhhh,girl on the lft,has a white belly.

Here's a screenshot of the original file along with all of my adjustment and filter layers. Now you can see how much magic I had to work after the fact. The ideal is to get it all in-camera. But that's an ideal. Next time I will get the lighting, background, and location better.

John, I hate to say it, but I like the orignal shot better. IMO, the bg looks much better, and sets off your models better being darker...

I can see how you like the redone skin tones, but when you lighten both the models' skin as well as the bg, it gives the appearance that you simply threw too much light at the whole scene. IOW, almost like a slight overexposure.

BTW, I take back what I said about your ps technique. As it turns out, the ceiling looks to be glazed, and so naturally has a wierd, almost muddy reflection. I thought that was all your doing in the retouched pic.

BTW2, I should have mentioned this in my previous post, but the easiest way to get a nice color cast in your bg is to light it with hot lights and use a daylight WB in your camera.

We used to use this trick all the time with daylight film, flash on the subject, and tungsten lights on the bg.

Sure, gels are an option, but that's a lot more work... :D

I like the first shot because the dark background goes with the tough "Mamacita" shirted women.

My first reaction to the original was...that's pretty cool.

I do agree that location is very important. I was reading in a magazine how this one person's house is the "perfect" fashion location and all of the magazines are fighting for it.

Nice work with two flashes, and if you ever want more horsepower, you are more than welcome to borrow the Elinchrom flashes.

Loren

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Originally Posted by Asylum Steve

Ok, I realize that many of the nice, slightly insecure people on this site like to add "just my two cents" to their posts to temper any perception that they're being too opinionated.

That's all well and good, but I think you're certainly one of the ones that have been around long enough to be above starting your post with "I don't know crap..."

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I don't know much about lighting... but I like the original better! I agree that the darkness in the ceiling fits the girls look much better... Just my .02. not spoken out of insecurity either. :) and i'm not allowed to say Cr@p yet :(