Photo Reverse Engineering

[rmh159]

A friend pointed me to the work of Ryan Schude and I'm wondering if anyone can explain how he does this style of lighting. For example:

Check out this shot

At first glance I thought they were simply separate exposures for each model where he could optimize the lighting for each, then stitch them together and clone out the lighting equip in post but on his flickr page he states: "they were all right there together, this is done with one frame, no compositing" so I'm lost.

Any ideas? His work is amazing if you want to check out the rest of it at www.ryanschude.com

 

[JerryPH]

Look at each light, check out the direction, strength, area of coverage... FIND where that light is and where it is coming from. It is usually pretty easy to reverse engineer a scene for the most (but not all) parts.

Unless I miss counted in the 10 seconds I looked at your suggested shot, it was done with 10-12 separate flashes at different distances, powers and zoom levels.

The first time you do a shot like this, it takes about an hour to set up. The second time, it takes about 20-30 minutes. It is all about seeing what you want in your head and then simply making it happen. The trick is often working in sections, and hiding well the flashes. It can be kept out of the frame or behind a wall or like one in this case, behind a trash bin.

A good vision, patience and lots of flashes and pocket wizards make it possible.

 

[SrBiscuit]

*BIG EDIT RENDERING MY RESPONSE TOTALLY INVALID*
(but i'll leave it here just to show my lack of attention span)

woah...lol....reading the whole OP REALLY helps in this case....


<post by someone who didn't read the whole original post>
interesting take jerry...my first glance sent me a totally different direction...

ill see if i can explain my version...

1st shot...empty scene, low light.
then i would imagine each subject was taken one it's own with it;s own lighting.

having a base layer with no subjects allows the artist to mask out things like flashes and unwanted areas of light.

my take could be way off base, but if someone showed me this shot, and said "make this"...i think that;s how i would first tackle it.

my way sounds a bit more time consuming and painstaking than yours jerry </post by someone who didn't read the whole original post>

 

[Iron Flatline]

As JerryPH says, just a few flashes, radio-triggered. Probably no more than 5 or 6 by my count.

 

[Blank]

I would say 9 independant flashes at different power levels. I like it alot. I would imagine it took quite a while to set up and lots of late nights testing flash power/distance results.

 

[blash]

Depends on how much was set up... I can count about 3 different light sources that are for sure flashes. Including all the different light sources though (out-of-frame lamp post, TV, indoor lamps, etc. - all of which can be done with different flashes) then the count increases to approximately 9-11 flashes/sources of light, of differing colors and intensities.

If not stitched together... that's one hell of a shot to set up.

 

[ryanschude]

Unfortunately it was a lot longer set up than 1 hour since I didn't have any assistants for this one. More like 4 hours and that was rushed. The second and third times didn't get any quicker. This image had 10 strobes, there is no available light being used, they are all just out of frame or blocked by something.

 

[Iron Flatline]

Cool, thanks for stopping in and sharing that with us.

Stick around, it's a good community. There may be some noobs in the Beginner section, but they benefit from an occasional explanation or creative critical comment.