some lighting questions

[mfrances]

I'm new to this forum, I'm a San francisco photography student, very familiar with street photography but only one class into lighting itself, so any help would be appreciated. I have a few questions about some lighting that I am trying to achieve:

First, how would I mimic the lighting on something like this:

I know that this picture was taken with a Polaroid 690 or similar model...I will be using an SX-70 instead, and I don't expect to fully imitate the image, but I am curious about the clarity of the face while still retaining the sunburst in the back. I know I'll probably have to use on-camera flash, but I worry about it taking away from the backlighting. Can I rely solely on the sun, or do I have to pop a flash from behind? I'm almost positive that this image was taken in ambient lighting without studio lights, but I'm not sure.

Second, how would I mimic lighting on something like this:

I know that Photoshop has been employed here, and I intend to use a bit of Photoshop on the final result, but how do I get close to this washed-out point without Photoshop? How do I wash out the skin without washing out the background? I will be trying to get this picture with my SX-70 but will also be using 35mm color transparency film. Any lighting setup suggestions would be great.

Thanks in advance!

 

[bango707]

for the first picture, just make sure that you are properly exposed on your subject face. That photo was taken with semi hard, frontal light about the height of the subject forehead (maybe a bit higher). The background isn't very clear to me but any strong source should do. Just know that you are going to be blinding your subject like the lady in this pic. Sometimes models don't dig that so make sure they are cool with it before hand! Also beware that hard light really shows the imperfections of peoples skin i.e. wrinkles, scars, pimples...

My guess on the second one is that is was shot on a very overcast day but I don't know for sure. Super soft light from directly overhead should do the trick. Add a bit of fill, slighly overexpose and you should have it.

 

[Garbz]

Ditto on the second. Over cast day, bump up the contrast in photoshop and add a warming filter.