Portrait in Color II

[Digital]

C&C welcomed. Specifically, I would like comments on the lighting.

[billtils]

You could start with trying to do something with the white cap and shirt but I suspect these are blown in the original and not salvageable. But you probably know that anyway

[Manfred M]

First of all, I agree with Bill, the highlights are too bright and you are starting to clip. That is something you definitely don't want. If this were my image, I would pull the highlights down very hard (Highlights slider all the way to the left in most raw convertors) to bring out the textures there. When metering and shooting, preserving the highlights is critical in contemporary photography; clipping highlights is very much frowned upon.

I also find the pose a little awkward; why was your subject not sitting up straight? Your crop is very tight on both the left and right hand sides of the image; more space would there would make for a stronger image.

The shadow the rim of the cap is casting on the forehead is hard and unattractive. When shooting someone with a hat it is pretty well mandatory to use a second light source (fill light) from underneath to open up the shadow cast by the hat.

[DanK]

You've captured an expressive portrait. A good start, but several issues IMHO.

The most important is the clipping. There is no way to pull the highlights down to bring out detail unless you expose less to begin with. Do it with this, and it will turn gray by the time the detail appears, if it appears at all. This is a good example of where spot metering might be helpful. Alternatively, take a test shot and check the histogram. That should have shown you that you needed to decrease exposure by a stop or two.

A second issue is catch light, or more accurately, the lack of it. While direct illumination of a face with the main (key) light is generally harsh, one needs a small amount of light that will eliminate shadows on the eyes and give them some life. I don't do posed studio portraits, so I can't give you information about how to do that with studio lighting. Manfred can explain various ways to do this, I'm sure.

When I do candids with a flash, I do it with a bounce card. For example, this is a simple setup I use often when chasing kids:



The flash is bounced, usually off the ceiling, although you can be fancier, so almost all of the light is diffused by the flash. The bounce card directs a small amount of light directly toward the subject. That light eliminates shadows under the eyebrows and gives the eyes a little bit of twinkle. The small diffuser in the front softens that direct lighting a little.

By the way, there was no color profile embedded in your image. Firefox imposed sRGB as a default, and it looked fine, but when I opened it in Photoshop, it was somewhat orange until I imposed the sRGB color profile.

[Manfred M]

Actually Dan, there are catchlights in this image, but they are tiny and the position / size suggests on camera flash was used to take this shot. The small light source and hard shadow we see on the large image is indicative of on-camera small flash use.





Bruce - in a flash shot (unless it has been heavily retouched) a close look at what is happening in the eyes tells you a lot of what is happening. Let me bring up a closeup of an eye from a flash shot taken a couple of days ago...





You can see my 5-foot diameter umbrella, that has been lit up with a bare-head studio flash. In front of it you can see my camera, on a tripod,the radio trigger is sitting on the camera's hot shoe and the cable I tether to is coming out of the camera body. Off to the right you can see me; I had just fired off the camera and flash With a handheld remote. You can see how large and what the shape of the light modifier I used are.

This is a large and distinctive catch light that gives' the subject's eye some "life". On camera direct flash is generally considered to be one of the worst light sources in portraiture.

[Stagecoach]

How are you controlling the lighting power Bruce?

[Digital]

How are you controlling the lighting power Bruce?

Grahame, shot on-camera flash via TTL. Was not shot in manual.

Bruce

[Stagecoach]

Grahame, shot on-camera flash via TTL. Was not shot in manual.

Bruce

Thanks Bruce.

Out of interest last week I undertook some flash experimentation in preparation for a likely job doing some company portraits for a website builders client. It was mentioned that these would be 'At desks working, or working in hi-viz with clipboard kinda thing?' This is not the sort of thing I normally do.

Any way, I set up my model at a table, one flash at 45 deg towards and above the model shooting through a white umbrella and the other on camera pointed at the ceiling to provide some fill and illumination to background. Both were on TTL with no compensation and I was very surprised at the exposure accuracy with nothing blown. Further experimentation with adjusting the balance between the two with FEC has given me the confidence to use TTL mode for the job.

[Digital]

I increased the exposure to get rid of the clipping. You can see more of the detail in the hat.