Masterclass

[Chataignier]

Young Finnish pianist Milda Daunoraite in a masterclass with Denis Pascal - château de la Marthonie, St Jean de Cole.
International piano masterclasses 2024 organised by association Ad Manaurem 1762 : a week of intensive masterclasses and concerts all expenses paid for six exceptionally talented young pianists, selected two each by the Vienna conservatoire, the Paris conservatoire and the Royal academy of music London.

I was invited to record the event with two other local photographers - a rare opportunity.



Unfortunately the room was a photographer's nightmare, very dark with a south facing window in full sun directly behind the artists.

[DanK]

Indeed, extremely tough lighting. I assume they didn’t allow flash. Here’s a great opportunity to see how far you can take it with dodging, burning, and other tonality adjustments. I have almost no expertise in using them, but luminosity masks might be helpful.

I wondered about using the multiply and screen blend modes in addition to regular burning and dodging, but when I tried multiply on the bright side of her face, it over-saturated the face. I think using multiply with paired desaturation might work. However, I tried simply dodging and burning a little as well as boosting the midtone contrast on the face a tad. Not done by any means, but I think it shows that there would be a lot you can do.






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[Chataignier]

I'd already done most of that Dan (including luminosity masks), but I see you've managed to take it further - I'll revisit it.

Just out of interest, this is the original :



I was using my 50mm f1.8 as it's the fastest I've got and could not get any closer.