Me - the bad me

[Manfred M]

As a follow up to the "Good me" I posted a few weeks ago, a change in schedule meant we did the "Bad me" shot yesterday evening. The work was again by my classmate, Nicolas St Pierre, at the advanced lighting course we are enrolled in. I would like to show my work, but my subject asked me to not post images of her.

To make we look more evil, a studio light equipped with a small reflector was used to create a split lighting effect, where only half of my face is lit. The light is quite hard and was aimed to create the catch light in my one eye as well as lighting up the clerical collar.

A speedlight with an orange gel over it was placed right behind my head and a fog machine was used to push some smoke in to create that "fire & brimstone" look. A plain black cloth background on a background stand make everything look dark.

The images were shot using the 100MP Fujifilm GFX 100S; the image quality is amazing.






Here is the link to the "good" me. Me

[lunarbo]

Well it seems to me Nicolas/you have succeeded- same posture, expression and clothes....and let the lighting and colour do the job

Guess which picture will be on the front of the Parish Magazine ......

[mugge]

I like it. Maybe just open of the shadow over the face ever so lightly and I mean lightly.
Cheers Ole

[royent]

I'm with Ole with this. Your right hand side needs lightening slightly
Roy

[Manfred M]

Roy / Ole - I personally agree with you and don't do much "classic" split lighting because I like more detail in the shadow side of the image. It is not my shot, so I it is not in my control.

However, if you Google "Split Lighting", the images shown will look very much like this one. You might see a few shots with a hint of light, especially in the eye on the dark side, but the "purists" won't even show that. Regardless, the main reason for this lighting technique is to create drama, an in my view, that was accomplished here.

[pschlute]

I like it. I think an attempt to bring out more detail on the left could ruin the purpose.

[pnodrog]

Scary. I have just visited CnC while I test my new setup. An AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core Processor 3.70 GHz, 32GB Ram, 2x SSD, 4T HD and a MSI 34" 5k2k screen. Your image came across loud and clear. It was a terrifying image to try my new display on. A big jump from the laptop I have used for the last 15 months. I am going to look at some of the monthly completions to get a better idea of how good smaller size images appear.

[Manfred M]

I just received a very short video clip taken while the "bad me" shot was being taken.



The speed light behind me is gelled with an orange gel and creates the orange glow with the smoke. The large black reflectors on the right hand side (behind me) control the ambient light (negative fill). There is another flag on the left side of the frame that acts to cut the light from the strip box lighting the camera right side of my face.

The work is being done at the SPAO studio in Ottawa, Canada.

[pschlute]

Very informative, thank you.

[Wandjina]

A great image. I think I would slightly darken the background behind your right ear. Currently it seems to be the brightest part of the image and my eye is drawn to that area rather than to the face