Portraits of parents

[adamhiram]

One of my goals in learning studio lighting and portraiture was to take some formal portraits of my parents. They've been retired for a few years now, and the last time they had portraits taken was when they got married almost 50 years ago.

I didn't get too creative with the lighting, and opted for a basic 3-light setup with a reflector for fill. Key light is a 38" soft box above and about 30 degrees off-axis camera left. Fill is from a large white reflector camera right of the subject for roughly 4:1 key/fill ratio. Background light has a full CTO gel for a dark muted brown background, and hair/rim light is in a gridded snoot with a 25 degree spread behind and above the subject, camera right. A photo of a similar setup from another shoot is shown below for a better illustration.

Taken with a Nikon D500 with 85mm f/1.8, 50mm f/1.8 lenses. Basic edits in Lightroom, additional retouching in Photoshop. Cropped to 5x7 aspect ratio, as these will most likely be printed in 5x7 or 8x10.

Any feedback on what I did right or areas of improvement are appreciated!


20180708-DSC_8905a by adamhiram, on Flickr
(85mm, f/8, 1/125s, ISO 100)


20180708-DSC_8935a by adamhiram, on Flickr
(85mm, f/8, 1/125s, ISO 100)


20180708-DSC_8949a by adamhiram, on Flickr
(50mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 200)

Lighting setup (photo from a different shoot)

20180610-DSC_8108a by adamhiram, on Flickr

 

[tirediron]

Is there such a things as a basement studio that doesn't have at least one piece of disused exercise equipment shoved in a corner?

Nicely done; I expect they're very happy with these. Lighting-wise, you pretty much nailed it, 'though I think your hair light could have been dropped a stop as it's producing fairly strong specular highlights.

 

[Fujidave]

Lovely images of your parents, I do agree on the light on the hair though but agree about the lighting on the hair. I am sure both will be very happy with the images too.

 

[smoke665]

Very nice! I really like the one of both of the them, though maybe a little more centered to the left.

Not a criticism so much as a question, because I've run into the same thing when using a hair light on the fill side. If I move it to far right I seem to get spill and a hot spot either on the top of the cheek, or side of the head behind the eye. To me it ruins the shadow side, but that may just be my preference. I've tried different things from moving the hairlight closer, increasing the length of the snoot to using a grid and barn doors, both with limited success. The only real solution I've found is to move the hairlight further up and further back. Any suggestions?

 

[Jeff15]

Very nice images.....

 

[adamhiram]

Is there such a things as a basement studio that doesn't have at least one piece of disused exercise equipment shoved in a corner?

It came in very handy for hanging my light meter from!

Nicely done; I expect they're very happy with these. Lighting-wise, you pretty much nailed it, 'though I think your hair light could have been dropped a stop as it's producing fairly strong specular highlights.

Lovely images of your parents, I do agree on the light on the hair though but agree about the lighting on the hair. I am sure both will be very happy with the images too.

Thank you! Agreed - I still haven't fully figured out appropriate positioning of a hair light. In this case I went for a wider spread to also act as a rim/separation light, but definitely noticed the bright specular highlights it caused. I actually had to burn down the highlights a bit to get to this point; they were actually worse in the original images. I also wonder if I should have changed flash power or position for different subjects, but didn't think of it at the time. For anyone interested, I think I metered the hair light the same or +.3 stop above the key light, based on this reference diagram I bookmarked a while back.

Very nice! I really like the one of both of the them, though maybe a little more centered to the left.

Not a criticism so much as a question, because I've run into the same thing when using a hair light on the fill side. If I move it to far right I seem to get spill and a hot spot either on the top of the cheek, or side of the head behind the eye. To me it ruins the shadow side, but that may just be my preference. I've tried different things from moving the hairlight closer, increasing the length of the snoot to using a grid and barn doors, both with limited success. The only real solution I've found is to move the hairlight further up and further back. Any suggestions?

Thanks! I'm curious what the answer is to this as well - I've read a lot about hair lights, rim lights, separation lights, and I still keep ending up with something I want to improve upon.

Very nice images.....

Thank you.

 

[smoke665]

I still keep ending up with something I want to improve upon.

Story of my life Adam. I have a shoot coming up that I plan on trying a couple things. One is to use an extension on a snoot for the hair light, then use tape to reduce the opening to a slit. so that I can more precisely focus that hair light. The other is to use the additive method of metering that MRCA mentioned in another post.

When you did the shot of them together, did you add a second hair light or split the difference with the one????

 

[adamhiram]

When you did the shot of them together, did you add a second hair light or split the difference with the one????

I had the hair light configured for a wider spread (25 degree grid) to act as more of a rim/separation light, so when I added a second subject, it was already wide enough to illuminate them both. This was more the result of being indecisive about whether I wanted a hair light or separation light, and seems to have worked out pretty well.