How do I take pictures like these?

[couture87]

Hey Everyone,
My husband recently just got me the CANON G10. I have read the manual and taken some shots, but i am not really looking into doing "serious photography". However, I would like to ask for some help on how to take shots like those below. What settings I should put my camera on? I love the overall effect, especially the black and white. Its simplistic. I would like to take photos just like that of myself too. Thanks, much appreciated!

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/6900/img7023.png

 

[couture87]

By the way, this girl took the pictures of herself, i would like to learn how to do it as well!

 

[couture87]

well yes, i figured that, but i'm wondering how to set my camera so i can take shots that give that overall effect to the picture.

 

[boogschd]

lol for a sec there i thought it was you in the shots


pretty young age for a girl to have a husband

 

[couture87]

lol, no that is definitely not me.

 

[Sherman Banks]

Just take some pics in a semi dark room using only the flash on your camera for lighting with a white backdrop. The vignetting (darkened corners) might have happened naturally but is also easily added using photoshop. They remind me a lot of American Apparel ads.

 

[SrBiscuit]

one change i might make, compared to this girl's shots, is to include your whole head.

 

[nikonguy]

these photos seem blown out.. not to sure why you'd want that look...

 

[couture87]

i would just like to know how to take pictures like these. the settings and what not, you all might not like it, but i do so i would appreciate if someone could give me some pointers

 

[nikonguy]

settings are kind of hard for us to tell you, because we dont know what the lighting in the room was like... these were taking with some heavy flash though, that much I can tell you

 

[manaheim]

I wonder if you could get that using a fairly wide snoot, or a snoot from quite a distance. (look up snoot on the net)

 

[manaheim]

By the way, you're supposed to link to other people's photos, not actually post them in the forum. (no need to freak out, just rules of the forum to keep people from posting other people's work)

 

[Sherman Banks]

i would just like to know how to take pictures like these. the settings and what not, you all might not like it, but i do so i would appreciate if someone could give me some pointers

I'm always kind of drawn to the lo-fi, screw the rules photography, so I'd agree these have some allure to me. I experimented last night taking some shots like this and got similar results. I just set my wife in front of a white wall, very dark room, hot flash (on-camera, bumped it up a stop), and did some post production work for contrast and vignetting. I converted mine to B&W because I seemed to be getting a lot of noise (shooting ISO 400). I think Manaheim is probably right with using a snoot to get the lighting.

 

[couture87]

Thanks guys! Oh and woops, sorry for not linking! Will make sure next time

 

[AlexColeman]

Don't worry, however is anyone finding Nikon Guy grating? In numerous threads, he has nothing useful, and is being passive aggressive to me in a recent thread. Just saying...