My Good Friend

[kdthomas]

A very good friend of mine, a man I've known for 10+ years, sat for me today.

 

[kdthomas]

hope it's not inappropriate to bump ... but was really looking for some C&C ...

(and yes, I borrowed a bit from Avedon's style) ... right now I see a hair in the right ear, a speck on the shirt, and specks on the glasses ...

thanks

 

[tirediron]

Not innapropriate at all. I think your key needed to come just a bit farther image right. As well, you're losing detail in the tops of his head where it's blending with the background. Shooting the follically challenged against white can be difficult. I think you could probably stand to lose the hairlight altogether on this one.

 

[The_Traveler]

Startlingly at f 16, the eye and eyebrows seem less sharp than they should.
Perhaps the eye un-sharpness could be due to the glasses.
If you get a chance to reshoot, besides lowering the background light, I would fix a target for him to focus on, snap one with glasses, have him hold position while you remove glasses and get another shot of his eyes.
Then they can be laid in place behind the glass.

 

[Derrel]

I thin k the camera is far too close to him, and his beard appears to be unusually large, and the top of his head unnaturally small, due to too close a camera placement. I agree with Tirdiron,. the key light is too far off to the left, and the right side eye is bordering on, yet not quite "dead" (there is a teensie bit of iris definition, but no catchlight).

THe back light ratio is too high, and his mouth area is an unappealing, black void. You can see his beard being blown out and lost in the excess blowback from the background on the camera-right side, but overall, the brilliant, over-lit white backdrop is also not working well with the somber, "heavy" lighting pattern on his frontal areas.

Knowing that you shot this with Speedo Brown Line, I would suggest that in many cases, there is a real, genuine need to add a third light, to get you into the 3-light power options, with 140-140-70 at full-power on a D402 pack in Asymmetrical output option, even if you just aim the third head into the ground, you WANT a lot less power sometimes on the background. The white is over-lit for such a dark,heavy-shadowed front.

 

[kdthomas]

Thanks for the feedback ... I was trying to study & emulate Avedon's way of blasting out the BG and having the light "wrap" around his subjects. But yes, a little of the top of the head is lost, sure enough ... you have to look a bit to see the separation.

And by image right, do you mean move the light such that it's coming more straight into his face, rather than from his right?