messing with lighting

[Lmphotos]

 

[Lmphotos]

Should of said C&C pretty please!

 

[Lmphotos]

Bump for c&c

 

[pgriz]

Yeah, it kinda sucks when you put in the effort, and there are no replies. So let me take a shot at it.

I assume this is a lighting exercise, and so will critique it as such.

The balance between the ambient and the flash tells me you intended the background to be about 3-4 stops darker than the main exposure with the flash. I find the amount of flash power you dialed in appears correct, but what I’m less excited about is the hardness of the shadow (looking directly at his nose), and its positioning. From the shape of the shadow, it appears you shot the flash direct (no softbox or umbrella or other modifier), and that the location of the flash was about 45 degrees to his right, at the height of his head. This resulting shadow is not, in my opinion, complimentary to his face.

Under ideal circumstances (say an assistant and access to modifiers), I’d have tried to raise the flash head another couple of feet so that the angle of the light would be about 20 degrees downward, and I would have used some kind of modifier to soften that shadow. If the shadow was important in your view to create a sculpted view of the face, it would have helped to reduce its severity somewhat with a fill light on your model’s left (or a reflector instead of a fill light).

It’s kinda hard to give more specific advice as you have not indicated what you were trying to achieve with this shot in terms of your lighting setup, and my advice may be completely off base relative to what you were going for. Perhaps that’s why you weren’t getting any comments – people were not sure what your intentions were for this shot, and didn’t therefore know what aspect to comment on.

 

[tirediron]

What he said! ^^

 

[Lmphotos]

Correct it was just me trying to get comfortable with lighting I think the goal was to make a young pup look moody and "cool" as that's what he wanted. It is being held but an assistant to the right and up about 6 foot 45 degrees pointing at the subject on light modifier I have is a Lightsphere so that's whats on the camera

 

[Lmphotos]

I also agree after I look at it the shadows are hideous but this is something I never noticed until you pointed it out exactly why I love getting critique on my photos!

 

[Rick50]

something I never noticed until you pointed it out exactly why I love getting critique on my photos!

Isn't this the truth. I've noticed it myself.