Best of a bad situation?

fjrabon · Apr 7, 2015

So, I was an idiot.

First, I agreed to do a headshot session for a friend of mine. Essentially they have a vendor who just wouldn't respond to them, wouldn't schedule their session, and they were running into a deadline for a conference they were doing. I'm not a state sanctioned vendor, so they couldn't officially pay me.

Second, part of me taking it was them telling me that they had a full studio setup (they used to employ a staff videographer/photographer). Thus I wouldn't need my own lights. I asked what type of lights they had and they said "phottix." I'm assuming (yeah, I know) they have some nice phottix strobes, because as far as I knew that was all phottix made studio lighting wise. So I'm thinking "easy peasy, jump on the train with a camera, some pocket wizards, a sync cord just to be safe."

So I get there, and it's a constant light video setup. The lights have a weird cast to them that changes as you dim or brighten them (yellow at low power, blue at full power). They were also bolted permanently into the ceiling, all I could do was raise and lower them a bit. Further, the background is maybe a foot away from the chair, and the whole room is about 15 feet deep. And the backdrop is a blue velvet curtain that will suck their hair into the abyss with no hair light.

So, having the two lights at variable power was out of the question, as that would create different light color casts. Moving lights was also out of the question. My choice was basically a one light setup or a two light setup. As this was mostly for a program, I figured I needed more even lighting, though the one light setup may be more aestethicgally pleasing. It also needed to serve as functional for both badges and poster boards, as typically they send in one image that gets used for both, which meant something that worked as identification on a small head only crop, but also looked okay on a 18"X12" poster.

Also, I had about a 30 minute window to do 6 people, thus they were rushed and I couldn't really build rapport, which lead to a lot of forced smiles. Which is such a BS excuse, I know, I still should have done better in that regard.

Normally I don't post work product here, but given that it wasn't paid and the conditions, thought I'd get some feedback.

Anyway, here's the shot I got:

sscarmack · Apr 7, 2015

For the situation you were handed, I think you did very well.

sm4him · Apr 7, 2015

The big question is: How do THEY feel about the photos? If they like them okay, then that's good enough.

Sometimes, you just gotta do the best you can with what you've got. Looks like you pretty much did that. Sure, the hair blends in to the background, and there's some shadows created by the lighting, etc. But it's not like those problems exist simply because you were ignorant about how to do the shoot. Looks to me like they got what they bargained for, and I'd think that if this is their "permanent" setup, it's okay with them.

fjrabon · Apr 7, 2015

sm4him said:
The big question is: How do THEY feel about the photos? If they like them okay, then that's good enough.

Sometimes, you just gotta do the best you can with what you've got. Looks like you pretty much did that. Sure, the hair blends in to the background, and there's some shadows created by the lighting, etc. But it's not like those problems exist simply because you were ignorant about how to do the shoot. Looks to me like they got what they bargained for, and I'd think that if this is their "permanent" setup, it's okay with them.

I mean they're totally satisfied with them as far as I know. Or at least they said they were. Just frustrating for me, personally, to put out a product like this.

I guess part of posting this was simply to vent, part was if anybody had any ideas for what could have been done. One idea I had after the fact was to maybe try feathering in a touch of on camera speedlight bounced off the ceiling to eliminate the shadows a little bit, but I didn't think of that until later, and don't know that I would have had time to nail the right balance with the fixed lighting anyway.

Derrel · Apr 7, 2015

I laughed to myself as the reveal of their "full studio" and its ceiling-mounted constant lights came to fruition! Lol! Ya gotta love people when they tell you stuff, don'tcha'!

I dunno...she's atractivre, which helps a lot. Reduced to a headshot on an ID badge, this will look really good. Good eye-sparkle, a tiny and not-objectional bit of very gentle specularity on the chin,nose,cheekbones, and forehead, some direction to the light but also some fill...I dunno...it's not "that bad" really...it looks like her, right? It has the borg-standard blue background which many people find perfectly fine...it is what it is. And by that I mean, well, it's a perfectly adequate likeness of her, where the face advances and the rest of the things sort of fall in line. I mean it's not Richard Avedon or Karsh or even Terry Richardson, but it does have some character to the lighting. I would say I like this lighting MORE than today's all-too-common, mushy, directionless, softbox flood of light approach.

I can imagine the company's "full swimming pool" up on the roof...a small collection of lawn chairs and end tables surrounding a five foot sided portable pool! And its "full recreation and sports complex", which is actually a basketball court with some old rusty free weights and some jump ropes and wooden step boxes and a wall-climbing peg-board setup!

IronMaskDuval · Apr 7, 2015

I think you would have done better to have shot outside at low sun. I've been doing head shots outside lately and have had better results. Most of Hess new hippy companies do not like the solid background anyway. Not enough swank, I guess.

fjrabon · Apr 7, 2015

Derrel said:
I laughed to myself as the reveal of their "full studio" and its ceiling-mounted constant lights came to fruition! Lol! Ya gotta love people when they tell you stuff, don'tcha'!

I dunno...she's atractivre, which helps a lot. Reduced to a headshot on an ID badge, this will look really good. Good eye-sparkle, a tiny and not-objectional bit of very gentle specularity on the chin,nose,cheekbones, and forehead, some direction to the light but also some fill...I dunno...it's not "that bad" really...it looks like her, right? It has the borg-standard blue background which many people find perfectly fine...it is what it is. And by that I mean, well, it's a perfectly adequate likeness of her, where the face advances and the rest of the things sort of fall in line. I mean it's not Richard Avedon or Karsh or even Terry Richardson, but it does have some character to the lighting. I would say I like this lighting MORE than today's all-too-common, mushy, directionless, softbox flood of light approach.

I can imagine the company's "full swimming pool" up on the roof...a small collection of lawn chairs and end tables surrounding a five foot sided portable pool! And its "full recreation and sports complex", which is actually a basketball court with some old rusty free weights and some jump ropes and wooden step boxes and a wall-climbing peg-board setup!

the "company" is the government, so that probably explains a lot, haha.

fjrabon · Apr 7, 2015

IronMaskDuval said:
I think you would have done better to have shot outside at low sun. I've been doing head shots outside lately and have had better results. Most of Hess new hippy companies do not like the solid background anyway. Not enough swank, I guess.

Yeah, true, though low sun outdoor wasn't an option. It had to be at lunch time. Also not sure that outdoor portraits would work for ID badges at a conference.

Designer · Apr 7, 2015

Hey, that's good!

Too bad about the conditions you had to endure.

fjrabon · Apr 7, 2015

Designer said:
Hey, that's good!

Too bad about the conditions you had to endure.

to be honest, at the time, I sorta found it enthralling. I sorta perversely like bad situations at the time. Afterwards, as I was getting ready to sent the pictures in, I got frustrated with how they looked.

tirediron · Apr 7, 2015

Lemons -> Lemonade = Professional

pixmedic · Apr 7, 2015

maybe its just me and my personal taste but...I like it.
I personally might have gone with a tad more DOF to get the rest of her hair in focus, but otherwise i think this is a nice shot.

JohnnyWrench · Apr 7, 2015

You made chicken salad out of chicken $h!t. You were put in a bad situation and did the best you could. Considering they didn't give you an accurate description of what you were working with, gave you 30 minutes for 6 people and you did it for FREE... they should be super happy with the final product. I wouldn't be too hard on myself if I were you.

Derrel · Apr 7, 2015

pixmedic said:
maybe its just me and my personal taste but...I like it.
I personally might have gone with a tad more DOF to get the rest of her hair in focus, but otherwise i think this is a nice shot.

This actually reminds me of 1950's-era commercial floodlighted portraiture, done with "photo flood" bulbs in parabolic reflectors. There was a time when this was what much commercially done headshot work looked like! Imagine if that was Marilyn in the shot. This type of lighting is old-fashioned, it's an older style of lighting, but it's really NOT "awful"...it is what it is...it's another type of lighting, one we're not used to seeing today, but which has been used for a long time.

IronMaskDuval · Apr 7, 2015

fjrabon said:
IronMaskDuval said:

I think you would have done better to have shot outside at low sun. I've been doing head shots outside lately and have had better results. Most of Hess new hippy companies do not like the solid background anyway. Not enough swank, I guess.

Click to expand...

Yeah, true, though low sun outdoor wasn't an option. It had to be at lunch time. Also not sure that outdoor portraits would work for ID badges at a conference.