Please help Again!

zoe08 · Apr 26, 2006

Ok So I have a final project due on Monday. We are supposed to turn in 10 good pics, portfolio quality. Well I am no where near there!! I was in the studio 2 hours today and didnt get much. And I have some studio time on Friday, but my boyfriend is the only model then.

I am starting to think I should completely stay away from any field where you are supposed to be very creative....Anyways...a few of my attempts....

and if you have any suggestions for the shoot on friday, clothes, poses, anything PLEASE post!!!!!!!!!!!

And this one didnt really work out how I wanted it to....Doesn't really work, does it?

AprilRamone · Apr 26, 2006

I actually think that last one is the best out of all of these. Next time, I would try covering that table with some fabric because it's really distracting. As a beginner I would probably stay away from photographing someone wearing white. Especially if there is more than one person in the shot and the others are wearing a darker color. It just really pops out and is distracting when photographed in that sort of combo. I assume you'll be touching these up in ps? There are some spots on the background that should be cloned out and some blemishes too. Good luck

zoe08 · Apr 26, 2006

Actually I havent taken Digital I yet (next semester) and I dont know how to really use photoshop....

And I didnt know I was going to use the table til I got there, it just happened to be there so we used it...

KevinR · Apr 27, 2006

A small suggestion on the way you are lighting. It seems pretty flat to me. If you can, you could try setting up a hair light to cause some separation or even another light aimed at the blackground too. Just a thought.

And try to focus the lights to get one catch light instead of two.

WNK · Apr 27, 2006

The last one I think could really work as long as you crop above where you can see her leg at the bottom.
I dont normally do portraits, so unfortunately I dont have any advice as to poses/setup/etc. Good luck!

monicam · Apr 27, 2006

i think you have to focus on lightning matter..

as I could see it's just a normal shot..

you have to advice the model not to wear light colors specially they are white...purple for the girl and pastle blue for the guy..perfect dress code for me..

zoe08 · Apr 27, 2006

KevinR said:
A small suggestion on the way you are lighting. It seems pretty flat to me. If you can, you could try setting up a hair light to cause some separation or even another light aimed at the blackground too. Just a thought.

And try to focus the lights to get one catch light instead of two.

Unfortunately....There are only 3 heads and one of them was not working. so I only had 2 and one of them only went off every other time....

Christie Photo · Apr 27, 2006

KevinR said:
A small suggestion on the way you are lighting. It seems pretty flat to me.

Agreed, but it's no small matter. The lighting is very flat. You have to work on your lighting "ratio" to add some shape to your images. This isn't too difficult to achieve. What you need to achieve (at least as a starting point) is twice the amount of light from one of your lamps (the main light). You can do this simply by moving that lamp in closer to your subject.

And as Kevin pointed out, you need a background light. You can get away without for this assignment by letting some of the other light spill onto the background, but making sure you don't get shadows as you did on your last image here. Adding a vignette will help create the illusion of a background light.

BTW... are you shooting film?

Pete

zoe08 · Apr 27, 2006

No I am shooting digital. I have a Nikon D70. One of my lights was 2 times as close as the other....but one of them was as far back as I could get it, the other if i got it much closer it kept overexposing....

Background light? As in lighting the black paper? My teacher said we dont need background lights on black...but I dunno...I would have put a rim light to help separate them from the background, but I only had 2 working lights...

Christie Photo · Apr 27, 2006

zoe08 said:
Background light? As in lighting the black paper? My teacher said we dont need background lights on black...

Hmmm... well, ya do. Of course if you want a totally edge-to-edge black background, you don't need to light it. But for that matter, it wouldn't have to be black paper. No light reflecting off the paper, no record of it in your exposure, no matter what color the paper.

But I would recomend some light on that paper for portraits. Place a light close to it so it feathers or falls off from center to edge.

I think too you'd benifit from some diffusion to soften the hard edges and contrast.

What sort of lights do they have for you to use?

Pete

zoe08 · Apr 27, 2006

Its a dyna-lyte kit, with 3 heads, but half the time one of them isnt working...like yesterday

And I had a softbox on my left and umbrella on my right...but still had a hard time knocking down the light enough. It has 2 1000 watt packs but I was just using one.

Christie Photo · Apr 27, 2006

zoe08 said:
It has 2 1000 watt packs but I was just using one.

That's good. Are there any setting on this thing? My guess is at 1/4 power and 100 ISO, you should be shooting right about f8 or so (maybe 5.6)... that's with the softbox about 3 feet from the subject.

It sounds to me like you have a good handle on it. By looking at the catch lights, I think if you can move the softbox in AND up just a bit, you get some results that you'll like.

You're very close.

Pete

zoe08 · Apr 27, 2006

Well I had the softbox and umbrella plugged into one side so they were 125w each. when I took one out and just used one light @ 250w it was too bright and I couldnt get the softbox that close. That is what I dont understand how everyone else seems to be getting that to work right, and it overexposes for me...my ISO was 200 apparently that is as low as it gets on the D70 but that shouldnt make to much of a difference.

Later tonight I will try to go through and post up a few more pics...